


Lockout

by mutationalfalsetto



Series: Head Down, Eyes Forward [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Sports, Alternate Universe - Weightlifting, Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Vehement Egg Hatred, wanton pastry destruction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 15:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 86,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6811624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutationalfalsetto/pseuds/mutationalfalsetto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky are olympic weightlifters. The rest is history (sort of).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

The nerves start the morning before. It’s a quiet nagging at the back of his mind, a _what if_ that drifts lazily through his brain throughout the day. He meets his clients, he coaches a few classes, he writes that program that he’s been meaning to write for _after_.

By mid-afternoon the nerves aren’t ‘drifting’ so much as they are throwing themselves against the walls of his skull. His heart feels like it’s permanently sped up, never mind that he’s weaned himself off coffee until the following morning.

 _Well_ , he thinks, glancing down at the cup in his hand, _maybe not entirely_.

The nerves have managed to successfully make a break for it by the time the sun is setting. The evening class is wrapping up; people working off frustrating days in the office. He winces as the foam roller digs into a particularly tight spot and wishes he could do the same.

At home, the nerves are bubbling in his stomach. He tries to distract himself. Dinner ( _when was the last time he legitimately enjoyed food?_ ), Netflix, more foam rolling. He closes his eyes and he sees every miss he’s made in every training session leading up to this point. A sigh.

Nick texts him around 3 AM. He only knows this because the soft vibrating of his phone wakes him from the fragile sleep he’d managed to fall into somewhere around midnight. So much for being well-rested.

 _Go back to sleep_. It says.

An ellipses. He’s nearly put the phone down when the second message appears. 

 _You’re ready for this._ Which is about as much support as he’s grown to expect from Nick.

He puts his phone down again, falls into a restless sleep that carries him into 6 AM.

He doesn’t dream about the misses.

* * *

 

He’s early. He’s _always_ early. He’s early and he has his coffee thermos clutched in his hand like a lifeline, bag slung over his shoulder.

A beat. 

His pulse races, a dizzying effect that leaves him blinking dazedly at the person on the platform. Did he pack everything? Water? Snacks? Water? Shoes? USAW card? _His singlet?_

He forgot his singlet.

He feels his breakfast—6 eggs, 3 strips of bacon, toast, oatmeal—trying to creep back up his esophagus and sets his bag down on a stack of bumper plates off to the side of the door. Carefully eases the zipper open. Holds his breath. 

Shoes. Sweats. Headphones. Water. Snacks. Singlet?

The familiar white and blue peaks out from under his shoes.

The nerves, already delighted by the opportunity to sink their claws into any moment of panic that comes their way, dig into his momentary lapse in calm with gusto. He takes another breath. Cracks open a bottle of water.

No matter how many times he does this, the feelings never get any more manageable. He could almost set his watch by it, at this point. 

Call for weigh-ins. Hand the person the card. Give opening attempts. Try not to make the initials _too_ shaky (he isn’t sure he succeeds).

Into the restroom. Hand the next person the card. Confirm the attempts. Strip. Stand on the scale. Frown because he weighs in light (again) but at least he knows he’s competitive. Step off the scale. Dress. Try to smile at the stranger who has literally just seen him in nothing but his underwear. 

Another two hours to kill. He eats a snack, settles in behind a platform that’s out of the way in the warm-up room. Looks for an Eleiko bar (he’s not _elitist_ he’s just very choosy, thanks). Listens to his playlists.

One hour. 

Eats a sandwich. Retrieves his singlet from his bag and ambles off in search of a restroom. Changes. Looks in the mirror. A selfie for posterity’s sake, the _USA_ standing out against the blue. As he wanders back to his spot, he logs into Instagram ( _it’s not a meet unless you post about it on Instagram_ ).

_Ready to crush it today!! #furyweightlifting #furyweightliftingteam #furybarbellclub #weightlifting #usaweightlifting #teamusa #halterofilia #roadtoworlds #snatch #clean &jerk #5everbulking #domytrapslookbigyet _

The previous session’s competitors have trickled back into the warm-up room. They gather their belongings, glancing at him out of the corner of their eye. His heart feels like it’s going to explode out of his chest, and he wishes he'd settled for the simple, black nike singlet like Sam’s. Wishes Sam hadn’t already qualified so they could stress about it together.

Ten minutes until the next group is called. He steps onto his platform, begins his warm-up. Shoulder dislocations, squats, anything to get his body moving and work off at least some of the adrenaline. Sots press. He feels like he’s moving right again.

His phone vibrates. Fury, asking for a status update.

_92_

He can almost feel Nick rolling his eyes, wonders why he bothers. 

Five minutes.

Close-stance squats. Drop snatch. The empty bar feels like a PVC pipe in his hands. Better than the alternative. He remembers meets where the barbell felt like the heaviest weight in the world, where even his warm-up lifts moved slowly, his legs protesting every movement and the _platform_

“ _Athletes please make your way to the platform_.” The voice sounds bored. He envies the voice.

They get through the introductions for the 94, 105, and 105+ classes. He smiles. He waves. The audience applauds. They know him. They know why he’s here.

The nerves don’t get the memo. By the time he gets back to the safety of his platform, his heart is hammering so hard that he wonders if he’ll die before they call him up. A glance at the clock. He certainly has enough time.

A pull. A snatch. Two snatches. The empty bar clatters to the ground and he issues a brief apology to whatever weightlifting gods are watching over him. “Don’t take it personal,” he mumbles.

But everything about the sport is personal. He of all people should know that by now.

A deep breath. Water. The lifters trickle out one by one until it’s him and the 105+, Thor. He glances hesitantly in the other man’s direction, receives a thumbs-up for his trouble.

“ _That’s noooooo lift, for—_ “

Deep breath.

Take a lift.

The thud of the bar on the platform, the audience’s cheers.

“ _That’s a good lift, for—_ “

Final lift.

A clatter.

_“—Rogers in the hole—“_

If he moves too quickly, if he stumbles, Thor doesn’t say anything about it.

Time has an odd habit of slowing down whenever he approaches the platform. The air bends around his every movement. His chest struggles to expand, the grooves on the pads of his fingers scrabble for purchase on the Velcro of his wrist wraps. A tug that takes a millennia to complete, and the wraps are secure.

“ _Rogers on deck_ ”

His heart is going to beat out of his chest.

It’s like this every time, and he doesn’t know if he could imagine it any other way. It comes from months worth of bad days, days when the bar felt too heavy to be lifted. Days when he couldn’t hit 80%. Days when the frustration welled up so intensely inside of him that he felt sick with it. When running headfirst into a brick wall sounded more satisfying than whatever sick show he was putting on. It comes from every moment spent throwing himself under weights, heedless of the inherent danger. From torn calluses and days where getting out of bed felt like a challenge in and of itself. From the desire to _be something_ that’s been clawing at his ribs since he first stepped into that hole in the wall gym.

“ _Making his opening attempt at 150 kilos, Steve Rogers_ ,“ the voice says.

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

The crowd fades with every step until it’s just the frantic beating of his heart. Just the tremors in his hands. The soft _clunk_ of his shoes.

The clock runs down.

He reaches into the chalk container, coats his hands liberally despite the fact that he never needs as much as he gets.

The clock runs down.

Deep breath.

The clock runs down. 

Steve steps onto the platform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to keep jargon out of this fic as much as I can, but I can't guarantee anything because as it is, weightlifting is a highly technical sport (shocking, I know). What you need to know right now is that olympic weightlifting consists of two lifts:  
> the [snatch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K3hdEWvs3s) and the [clean & jerk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eaf5P6Xrpn8).
> 
> [here's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_weightlifting) the wikipedia page (because you don't want to read through the IWF or USAW or any long document on weightlifting plz trust me on this). Any other lifts that I mention over the course of the fic that aren't well-known will have an accompanying video in the notes. If you guys have any questions about anything, feel free to ask!
> 
> Comments and critiques are always welcome.


	2. one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarah is skeptical.

When Steve Rogers is born it’s less of a joyful occasion and more of a mad rush to keep his tiny body from giving out. He’s in the NICU for months, tiny chest heaving with every breath because if there’s one thing he got from his father it’s his unrelenting desire to be as stubborn as humanly possible.

“ _We can’t say for sure_ ,” is what they tell Sarah Rogers as she sits next to her son’s incubator.

“ _Might want to prepare for the worst_ ,” is what they tell Sarah Rogers when it’s been months and the most progress her baby boy has made is to finally complete his mandatory hearing screen without fearing an inaccurate result. Too many whooshing machines. Too much beeping. Sarah Rogers grits her teeth in an approximation of a smile, settles into her chair until they send her home.

They tell her to prepare for the worst, and two months later she brings her son home.

Steve’s days begin and end with medications and nebulizers sprinkled throughout the hours for good measure. Try as she might, Sarah can’t keep her son out of the dirt and dust, can’t keep him from shoving bugs in his mouth, from grabbing wildly at the animals he’s allergic to with tiny, flailing fists.

So it’s no surprise to her when, at the age of 9, he looks up at her from the broadcast of highlights from the Summer Olympics and says “ _I wanna do that_ ”.

 _That_ , in this case, referring to the men onscreen lifting weights far beyond what a normal human should be able to lift.

The movements are effortless, explosive from start to finish. Some of the men celebrate when they drop the bar, others merely stalk off after the lift is complete. Of course Steve wants to do this. Of course.

Sarah assumes it’s a phase, a passing fancy. Just like baseball, like football, like rugby before that. Steve isn’t made for sports, isn’t made for the chalk that coats the rough hands of the athletes that step onto the platform. He isn’t made to lift a bar weighing more than himself above his head. Sarah assumes it’s a phase and she indulges him in his fantasy of Olympic-level glory. She buys him posters and books, she allows him to stay up to watch broadcasts from far across the ocean. He celebrates the world records and bemoans the weights that are lost behind. In front. Over the edge of the platform. White lights. Red lights. Buzzers.

And every time Steve asks if he can start, she says “not yet”.

Sarah Rogers assumes it’s a phase until he stumbles into the kitchen as she’s coming in from one of her night shifts at the hospital. He’s twelve, and still so small ( _will always be small_ , she thinks) but he slams the flyer down on the kitchen table with all the strength of one of those men on the television.

“ _I wanna go here_ ,” he says, gesturing at the bright red _FURY BARBELL CLUB_ , and Sarah knows he’s not asking.  


* * *

  
Fury Barbell Club is a hole in the wall gym that takes 2 trains to get to from their apartment. It’s dark, it’s loud, and all open surfaces seem to be covered in a thin layer of chalk.

Steve loves it.

Sarah is skeptical.

The man at the desk—desk in this case referring to a plank of heavy wood held up by cinderblocks at every corner—introduces himself as Nick Fury. She shakes his hand, feels callouses underneath her palm.

“Is he— _Barton, finish your damn pull!_ ” Fury’s tone switches from pleasant to barking, frustrated as a boy somewhere in the back drops the bar with a loud crash and an even louder “ _shit_ ”. 

When Fury turns his attention back to them, he’s returned to a conversationally appropriate level of loudness. He looks Steve over with interest, no doubt noticing the tiny arms, the soft, ever-present rattle when he breathes.

She knows what it looks like. What _Steve_ looks like, surrounded by equipment that could crush him if he moved the wrong way. She wonders if Fury is thinking what she thought, when Steve first expressed an interest in the sport, or if he’s focused only on the physical.

Steve’s eyes follow the movements of the lifters, like he doesn’t need to have a bar in his hands to learn. Like he can build muscle memory just by watching. 

Fury finishes his assessment, turns to look her in the eyes. Sarah holds her breath.

“Does he have any weightlifting shoes?”  


* * *

 

The first time Steve steps on the platform, it’s with a PVC pipe clutched in his hands. Fury leads him through the motions, a series of pulls, elbows up to his ears, pipe to his chest. The movements are fluid, quick.

Steve practices moving the bar along his thigh and then pulling up. Feels the ache settling into his muscles despite the complete lack of weight that he’s moving. 

“Less arm.”

He begins the cycle again.

The next time he comes in (“ _Two days, give yourself some time to rest_ ”) Fury gives him a barbell. It’s shorter than the others, lighter. The ends are wrapped in a light green tape.

It’s not a 20 kg bar, but it’s one step in the right direction.

The same movements, but faster. Snappier. He brings the bar up to his chest and drops under at the last second, arms locked tight, chest up. Like he’s holding the heaviest weight over his head.

“Again.”

Sometimes Fury isn’t around to instruct him. Sometimes he’s walking around the edges of the room, instructing the other lifters. “ _Keep your chest up_ ”, he says. “ _Get your head through_ ,” he says. “ _Barton if you don’t stop pushing with your damn arms—_ “

Even when he isn’t watching, Steve goes through the motions. Pull, pull, drop. Pull, pull, drop. His shoes make a soft _thud_ on the platform.

“Drop down harder,” Fury says.

Pull, pull, drop.

“Again.”

Pull, pull, drop.

“Rogers, I swear to god—“

Pull, pull, drop _crack_.

Steve jumps. The bar falls forward with a _clang_ as it hits the wood of the platform. “Was that—“

Fury moves on, but Steve thinks he did something right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This](https://youtu.be/eHTyCLt1wxo?t=1m42s) is similar to what Steve is doing, but with an additional pull.
> 
> Other notes: Steve is probably watching the 2000 Olympics. Newborn screening wasn't mandated in NY until like '97 but that doesn't necessarily mean that hospitals didn't _do_ it.
> 
> Feel free to ask questions, comment on stuff, etc! Vehement egg hatred looms on the horizon, I promise.


	3. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody wanna be a weightlifter but nobody wanna lift heavy-ass weight.

The first time Steve tries jerking with the 20 kg bar he slams it into his nose with enough force that he's forced to sit with his head tipped forward and his nostrils pinched together to stop the flow of blood. He’s been at this for a week and already managed to injure himself. Spectacular.

Barton— _Clint_ , Steve corrects himself—winces sympathetically at him from across the room. “I do that all the time,” he says as he approaches his own bar.

Fury hands Steve a wad of tissues, tips his head back momentarily to check for any sign of concussion. “Rogers is still learning, Barton,” he says, not bothering to look in the other boy’s direction, “what’s your excuse?”

The only response is the sharp _bang_ of the bar off Barton’s hips followed almost instantaneously by the sound of his shoes hitting the platform. There’s a pause, Clint’s chest heaving as he prepares to execute the jerk.

“ _Weight on your heels_ ,” Fury barks.

If Clint hears him, he doesn’t give any indication. His knees bend in a short, controlled dip before he explodes into the split.

Fury turns to Steve. “ _You_ need to get your head outta the way.”

Steve nods from behind the wad of bloody tissues. He spends a few more minutes sitting ( _pouting_ ) behind his platform before he is satisfied with the amount of blood—or lack thereof—flowing freely from his nose. 

He grabs the barbell, positioning it just as Clint did, elbows up, chest high. Deep breath. Slow dip. He closes his eyes this time, anticipating the sharp burst of pain as the bar collides with his face.

When he opens them again, the bar is overhead and Fury is telling him to “ _put the bar down, for fucks sake_ ”.   
  


* * *

 

  
It’s 8 AM on a Saturday, and this kid already looks like he’s been there for three hours. The back of his grey t-shirt (reading “ _FBC_ ” on the front and “ _nice snatch_ ” on the back) is practically black with sweat. His hair is plastered to his forehead.

Steve pushes his bangs out of his eyes, grimacing at the moisture that gets wicked away in the process. The godawful humidity probably isn’t helping. He notes the excessive chalk on the other boy’s hands, the handprints on his shorts. 

Humidity _definitely_ isn’t helping.

He sets his gym bag down next to an open platform, begins his warmup routine. Shoulder dislocations. PVC pass-throughs. Close-stance squats. He pauses in the bottom of the squat, rests his hands on his knees as he feels his hips open up. 

On the other platform, the boy approaches the bar. 60 kg, Steve notes with some jealousy. His own snatch is still at a pitiful 35 kg. On a good day. 

The gym is silent, the music that’s normally so loud he can feel it vibrating down into his bones conspicuously absent. Steve fears getting out of his squat, wonders if he’ll make too much noise if he does. 

The boy sets up, arms at the farthest edges of the knurling. Flicks his fingers one. Two. Three times. Takes a deep breath. Begins the pull.

If there's any word Steve would use to describe the lift, it’s _vicious_. The boy’s head snaps back and his shoulders follow suit, his elbows driving upward as he pulls himself under the bar only to lock out ferociously, his face obscured behind a sweaty curtain of hair.

The lift takes only a handful of seconds before the bar is on the platform, the boy setting up to take another rep. Steve follows his motions which fall somewhere between the idiosyncrasies of Dimas and something that Steve doesn’t think he’s seen before.

With the bar secured overhead, the boy sits, expressionless.

Seconds pass. Steve is appropriately horrified.

“ _Barnes_ ,” Fury’s voice echoes across the room as he exits the small box that makes up his ‘office’. “Stop showing off and _stand up_.”

The boy—Barnes—stands, drops the bar with a satisfying crash. He stumbles off the platform, sending a grin in Steve’s direction. “You said ‘stay in the bottom’, Nick, I’m—“

“You’re being a goddamn smartass is what you’re being,” Fury responds, his tone displaying none of the fondness that Barnes’ own reaction might suggest.

“So can I go up?” Barnes asks hopefully.

Fury inspects the bar. “Your max is 65.” 

Barnes nods.

“Two more doubles with this.”

Barnes deflates, lets his head fall back with a sound of disgust. “Nick, I _hate—_ “

Fury cuts him off. “You do doubles with 60 or you drop down to 50 for triples, your choice.”

Steve isn’t sure if Barnes is capable of deflating any more than he already has, but he's certainly trying.

“ _Nick_ ,” he exclaims, affronted.

“You wanna max out, you gotta put in work,” Fury growls. “End of discussion.”

Steve busies himself with some quick sots presses with the 10 kg bar, tries not to stare at Barnes as the other boy shoves his hands into the chalk bowl.

He’s putting the bar back on the rack when Barnes speaks again.

“You new?”

Steve knows that Barnes is talking to him, but he points at himself anyway. From Barnes’ unimpressed glance around the otherwise empty gym, Steve knows he’s really dropped the ball on this whole “who me?” routine.

In his defense, he recovers quickly enough. “I’ve been coming a couple weeks now,” he says as he starts his lifts.

Pull. Pull. Drop.

Pull. Pull. Drop.

Pull. Pull—

 _crack_.

Drop.

Pull. Pull—

_crackCRASH_

“Motherfucker!”

Steve turns in time to see Barnes picking himself up off the platform, rubbing the back of his head. “Sonnova fucking—“

“ _Watch your fucking language, Barnes_ ” echoes from Fury’s office.

Barnes says something under his breath that sounds like it could be in direct opposition to Fury’s command. He drags the bar back onto the platform, sets up, begins the lift again.

Steve continues his drills.

Pull. Pull. Drop. 

 _crack_  

The sound of the bar crashing to the platform is triumphant this time, followed by a loud whoop as Barnes celebrates a successful lift.

Pull. Pull. Drop.

“Put some weight on th’ bar.”

Steve rolls his eyes, begins again.

“ _C’mon_.”

Pull. Pull.

“ _God_.”

“Could you _shut up_?” Steve exclaims, whirling around to glare at Barnes. Barnes gives him the same smug grin he gave Steve when he was coming off the platform. “ _Christ_ not all of us can snatch 60 for a fuckin'  _double_.” 

Barnes’ expression doesn’t change as he stares at the bar in Steve’s hand. “ _Everybody wanna be a weightlifter but nobody wanna lift heavy-ass weight_ ,” he sing-songs, hopping up off his chair and approaching the barbell again.

Barnes misses his next two attempts. 

Steve is delighted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- You can absolutely hit yourself in the face with a jerk! I've done it in training, and in competition I managed to catch myself in the chin with 75 kg on the bar! This is not ideal. Do not do this.
> 
> \- This is [Pyrros Dimas](https://youtu.be/6C3YXUDZn3s?t=40s)! His lifting style is fairly unconventional if only because of how far back he throws his head. 
> 
> \- If I really had to pick someone that Bucky's snatch technique is (probably) very similar to at this point in the fic, it would probably be [Nadezhda Nogay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9nBQd6rZRM). _But_ given that she's _currently_ a youth lifter, Steve doesn't have that for comparison. Plus, Dimas.
> 
> -[This](https://youtu.be/uXFGWyNEOuU?t=30s) is a sots press (and also probably the only vid I'll ever use of Klokov ever because I'm not a fan). 
> 
> -"Everybody wanna be a weightlifter..." is actually a bastardized quote originally coming from bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman, who said "everybody wanna be a bodybuilder but nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight". It's still _really_ accurate, regardless.
> 
> Comment, yell a thing into the void, etc.


	4. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve hits a PR

Steve trains in the afternoon, when the sun is high overhead and heat has settled over the city. Some days it feels like he’s working under a heavy, slightly moist blanket. Other days, he’s just happy they haven’t run out of chalk. Anything to keep his hands from slipping on the bar.

He moves from the 10 kg bar for his warm-ups to the 20 kg bar. He throws little, red 2.5 kg and green 1 kg plates over the large 5 kg ones and is surprised when it flies overhead. 37 kg. Just like that.

Fury watches his movements carefully.

“Less arm,” he says.

“ _Heels_ ,” he says.

“That’s your best one,” he says. Clint gives him a high-five, proceeds to miss a max snatch attempt forwards, clipping himself on the back of the head as he does.

“ _That_ ,” Fury says, pointing. “We’re not gonna do that.”

Steve trains.

When he gets on the subway he sits and doesn’t want to get up again (but he will). His shoulders ache. His legs burn. Every movement is like dragging his limbs through drying concrete, an agonizing process that means it'll be hard to get out of bed in the morning.

“Rough session?” His mother asks. 

“Mmph,” he replies, face-down on their old couch.

“But you’re still having fun?” Steve doesn’t have to raise his head to know she’s giving him A Look.

He raises his hand in a half-hearted thumbs-up.

A pause.

“At least shower before you become one with the couch,” she says at last, patting him on the back as she leaves for work. Steve nods into the cushion. He doesn’t move for another hour.  


* * *

 

There’s a picture on the wall across from his platform. A glossy black and white photograph of a man under a spotlight. His singlet looks more like a one-piece bathing suit than any weightlifting gear, and it stretches tight over his enormous stomach. The man’s back is arched to the extent that it’s almost painful to look at, every muscle taut as he propels the bar overhead, arms straining. The clean and press.

Steve sets up, hooks his thumb around the bar. Shakes the tension out of his arms. Stares hard at the picture across from him, memorizes every detail.

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

He pulls.

The moment between the bar breaking off the floor and the second it contacts his hips is simultaneously an eternity and something significantly faster than his mind is capable of comprehending. Steve feels like he’s jackknifing, throwing his entire body backwards in order to pull himself under the weight that’s going to _crush him_ it’s going to _drive him into the floor it's_

The moment his elbows whip up, the _moment_ he feels the weight rest heavy on his shoulders is the moment he starts to push with his legs. It’s a herculean effort. The picture blurs. 

And then, he’s up. Sound bleeds back into the world; Fury yelling “ _weight on your heels, Rogers. Fast split. Get your head out of the way”_ , Clint’s words of encouragement. The thump of the bass through the speakers.

A deep breath that rattles in his throat, constricted somewhat by the bar. _The weight_ — 

Entire lifetimes seem to pass before he begins his dip. The controlled bend in his knee, the sudden, aggressive drive up ( _it’s too heavy IT’S TOO_ ).

He drives. He splits. He looks at the photograph.

The weight does not ricochet, as so many of the lighter weights do. It rests, stable in his hands despite the shaking of his arms, the way his chest heaves like he’s run a mile.

Front foot back, a practiced _one-two_ rhythm until he’s standing with the bar overhead, legs together.

“ _Down!_ ”

The bar clatters to the platform, and Steve becomes aware again of Clint’s whooping. The weight of Fury’s hand on his back as he stares at the bar, at the yellow plates _the yellow plates_ that’s _50_ kg, that’s over 100 pounds, that’s—

“ _Light weight_.”

Steve turns, shoots a glare in Barnes’ direction. Barnes, who has 50 kg on the bar as his _warm up weight_. Barnes, who has the audacity to stand there with his arms crossed in front of his chest and that stupid smile tugging at the corner of his lips like Steve’s success is a damn joke.

“I didn’t _ask_ for your opinion,” he sneers, tugging the 15 kg plates off with more force than necessary. He winces at the _clang_ of the bar hitting the platform. 

“I’m just _saying_ —“

“I _don’t care_."

Barnes’ expression doesn’t waver, but Steve knows the implication. _Everybody wanna be a weightlifter—_

Afterward, Fury claps him on the back again. Compliments him on the aggression in his pulls, his focus during his lifts.

Steve watches Barnes, the ease of the bar breaking the floor. The quick _down-up_ out of the hole, the way he _power jerks the goddamn weight_.

He asks if he can start coming five days a week.

 

* * *

 

It starts off as a few comments here and there. “ _Training for the Olympics, Rogers?_ ” When Steve walks off the platform. “ _Gonna win nationals for us?_ ” When he loses a snatch behind him. “ _I see a qualifying total with your name on it, man_.” When his warm ups don’t jump immediately from the green 10 kg plates to the yellow 15s.

Steve scowls, grits his teeth. Wraps his thumbs with purple tape (courtesy of Clint Barton), grips the bar hard and pulls.

Hodge positively _cackles_ when a jerk attempt gone awry nearly catches him on the top of the head.

“Gotta split fast, _Rogers_. Can’t medal if you’re not—“

“You wanna fuck off?” Steve is fuming, face red with embarrassment and anger. Hodge grins at him, leans against the wall. His bar is loaded with 60 kg for the clean & jerk.

From across the room, Fury calls “ _Hodge_ , less talking more lifting.” Steve feels a momentary rush of gratitude that’s replaced moments later by anger as Hodge power cleans 60, as he jerks the weight with ease.

Steve steps up to his measly 45 kg, over 80% of his max clean and jerk. He practically catches the weight standing up, a power without a doubt.

“Don’t muscle it, Rogers,” Fury says.

Steve drops the bar, begins again. Clean doubles. He can _do_ doubles.

Sets up. The bar breaks off the floor—

Basketball shorts, bright red. _Right_ in front of him as Hodge walks in front of his platform to the chalk bucket.

— the bar ricochets off his hips, lands hard against his clavicle. He bounces once. Twice. Grinds out of the hole with every ounce of power his legs can generate.

And positively _throws_ the bar onto the platform.

“You did that on purpose,” he exclaims. A childish accusation complete with finger-pointing.

Hodge, who still has his hands in the chalk bucket ( _not even the nearest chalk bucket_ , Steve notes), raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were lifting, Rogers. You gotta make a little more _noise_.”

He has a brief and overwhelming urge to pick up the nearest 5 kg plate and hurl it as hard as he can. Show Hodge what making a little more _noise_ really means. Instead he allows his hands to ball into fists, nails biting into his palms.

“You can’t make _nationals_ if you can’t handle a little distraction,” Hodge continues. “I mean, if you’re gonna make a qualifying total, anyway.” The look he gives Steve’s bar is dismissive.

 _Everybody wanna be a weightlifter, but nobody wanna lift heavy-ass weight_.

Steve looks at his bar again, the 10 kg plates and the little 2.5s. He feels anger like white noise in his head, creeping into the edges of his vision until it’s blinding him. 

He doesn’t remember moving, but suddenly he’s in front of Hodge, close enough to make out the places where his t-shirt design is wearing away. Close enough to stare him in the eyes like he plans on taking him on right there, in the middle of the gym.

When he speaks, it feels like he’s forcing his voice through the smallest space imaginable. It’s a hiss, some secretive agreement between the two of them.

“ _I’ll fucking qualify._ ”

Hodge laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- PR stands for "personal record"  
> \- Just like you can hit yourself with a jerk, you can drop weights on your head with the snatch. [jazz hands] _Weightlifting_!  
>  \- Weightlifters (and powerlifters, I think?) use something called a [hook grip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_grip#/media/File:Hookgrip.jpg) when they lift. It's more secure, especially through the explosive parts of the lifts, but it also totally destroys your thumbs. A lot of people tape their thumbs to minimize some of the damage (it doesn't, their thumbs are still p gross).  
> \- The [clean and press](https://youtu.be/7erVblY7aiU?t=34s) used to be a competition lift until the early 1970s. Vasily Alexeev is kind of the stereotypical "classic" weightlifter, and also just a legend in general. Those singlets, tho.  
> \- The [power jerk](https://youtu.be/iPIfdxxre3A?t=1m22s) is a variation on the (split) jerk.  
> \- Saying "light weight" to someone after they make a lift isn't actually an insult and Steve needs to develop some chill.  
> \- While Hodge is _technically_ correct re: dealing with distractions, it's considered pretty rude to walk in front of someone when they're performing one of the competition lifts.
> 
> Summer semester is starting this week so I'll try to update on a schedule, probably on Saturdays or Sundays (after training, incidentally).


	5. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Fuck 'em"

Fury pushes the registration form across the surface of his desk, and that’s the end of it. Steve scrawls his information, steps on the scale to get an accurate estimate of his weight class, and is out the door in a matter of minutes.

His hands tremble at his sides, residual energy thrumming through his body. He isn’t sure what he expected, but complete compliance wasn’t it. Perhaps laughter, some kind of _fight_ something to _push_ against… an opportunity to prove himself, perhaps.

But it was easy. It was only a few lines on a form and he’s registered. 

Steve sets up at _his_ platform, begins his drills. The close-stance squats to stretch his ankles. The pulls, the quick drops underneath the bar to practice the motions. He’s five minutes in and he’s already sweating, practically suffocating in the swamplike atmosphere of the gym. 

He finishes his warm-ups and slips the white plates onto the bar. One pull, two power snatches. Easy.

White and a red go up the same way.

“Put some weight on the bar, Rogers,” Fury calls from his office when he completes his second set with 35 kg. Steve frowns at his bar, recalls Hodge’s comments. Barnes’ remarks. He yanks the white plates off, puts green plates on. 

He’s setting up when the door opens, the soft tinkle of the bell the only indication that there’s a visitor. Steve ignores the newcomer, grips the bar. Tilts his chest up until he feels like a rubber band stretched to its limits. He waits patiently for his mind to fall into that familiar, comforting _blank_. There’s no misses when his mind is blank. There’s nothing to get frustrated about.

He begins, and the bar ricochets hard off his hips in an arc. Immediately he knows what’s going to happen, tries desperately to rock back from where he’s landed on his toes. Delaying the inevitable as he continues to tip further toward the platform.

The _crash_ of the bar is expected, and it sets something inside of him on fire.

Steve hears the rumble of Fury’s voice, doesn’t register the words because he’s already wrapping his fingers around the bar again. Something like a growl rips itself out of his throat. He has this _he has this_. 

The bar goes up again, and his whole body goes with it. He doesn’t see so much as he _feels_ the bar just barely missing his forehead, feels the rush to drop under and the _snap_ of his arms locking out.

Hears the crash of the bar on the platform as the bar falls behind him.

He’s still crouched like he’s in the bottom of the snatch, hands resting on his knees. There’s a prickling in his eyes and he’s not sure if he’s going to cry or scream or both.

Fury approaches almost cautiously, stands on the edge of his platform.

“Rogers.”

Steve looks up, doesn’t bother getting out of the squat. Doesn’t move to retrieve his bar _his fucking bar_ from where it rests against the wall. If he opens his mouth, he’s not sure what’s going to come out. That litany of _I’ll fucking qualify I’ll fucking qualify I’llfuckingqualifyI’ll_ beats at his bones like it’s trying to break him.

“You almost _powered that_ , Rogers.” Fury’s got his arms crossed, that ‘ _are you fucking kidding me_ ’ look on his face.

Steve frowns up at him. “Yeah, but I—“

Fury interrupts him. “You almost powered 5 kg above your max, Rogers. So you’re going to _get your bar_ and you’re going to _make that lift_ , understand?”

He opens his mouth to reply. Closes it again with a soft _click_. Fury doesn’t need to hear about the words floating through his head, the _you’re not good enough_ that blares every time anyone else steps up to make a lift, the chorus of _do better_ that’s always present behind every other thought he has.

“ _Understand_?”

Steve nods. His knees protest the motion of getting up out of the squat, from being stuck in that position too long. It’s not as bad as it used to be. He retrieves his bar from behind the platform, adjusts the plates so they’re flush against the collars.

_I’llfuckingqualifyI’llfuckingqualifyI’llfucking_

When he comes back into himself again, he’s at the chalk bucket. His palms are coated with it, and a little _puff_ of chalk erupts when he rubs his hands together. He watches the chalk particles dancing in the air, watches them settle. Feels his chest move in and out with every breath he takes. 

_I’ll_

He stands over the bar for a moment, closes his eyes. Visualizes the way the bar snaps over his head, the way his arms lock out. He visualizes success. He visualizes that qualifying total. 

He breathes.

Hookgrip around the bar ( _no tape today, Clint’s visiting relatives upstate_ ), the gentle weight of his other fingers over his thumb. The bite of the knurling against his palms. Deep breath.

_I’LLFUCKINGQUALIFYI’LL_

Sets up. Chest over the bar.

_I’LLFUCKINGQUALIFY_

Deep breath.

Deep breath.

Bar off the floor.

The rest is a blur of movement, the audible sound of the bar against his hips, the clatter of the plates against the collars as the bar _moves_ and he’s locking out, he’s _got it_ and something in his chest lifts, feels lighter than air because he’s finally gotten it he’s

The crash of the bar on the platform reaches his ears before the sensation of his arms following the bar behind him.  
  


* * *

 

  
He weighs himself again the week before his competition.

 _46 kg_.

Steve stands in front of the bathroom mirror, flexes his skinny arms like he expects to see something there. He flexes until his arms shake with the effort, but he doesn’t see anything. 

 _46 kg_ , and he’s a fucking twig.

He stands in front of his bedroom mirror, considers his knobby knees, the way he can see his ribs just like he’s sure someone can see the bumps of his spine. The sharp jut of his elbows.

In retrospect, he’s not sure what he expected. A couple months of training and he’d look like Dimas? He’d step out on the competition platform looking like he belonged in the Olympics instead of a local meet?

Steve thinks of Clint, of Barnes, of _Hodge_ and the way someone could look at them and _know_. They look like athletes. They look _strong_.

Steve slips out of his singlet, one quick motion. It’s a size _small_ and it’s too big on him and he’s torn between laughing, crying, and doing both at the same time. 

_46 kg_

He changes into a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Like the singlet, they hang off him, a constant reminder that he’s too small, he’s _always_ too small. Too small. Too weak. He clenches his jaw, remembers Hodge’s laugh, the barbed comments about the weights on the bar.

 _“_ Fuck ‘em,” he says to the empty apartment as he stomps into the kitchen. He throws open the cabinets, unsure of what he’s looking for but knowing he needs _something_.

Boxed pasta. Canned tuna. A bag of knockoff Cheetos, if Cheetos mated with a pretzel. His mom said she was going grocery shopping after work, not that it helps him right now.

Patience is not a virtue that Steven Grant Rogers possesses.

He looks into the fridge, sees a jar of marmalade, a carton of eggs, some whole milk that he’s pretty sure expired a few days ago, a dry block of cheddar cheese. 

Steve snatches the carton out of the fridge, grabs a pan and the cheese as soon as he’s set up his station at the stove. He pours some olive oil into the pan and moves it around with the spatula.

There are 11 eggs in the carton, he takes six of them and cracks them into a bowl, grates some cheese.

He watches as little clumps of dry cheese fall off the cheese grater. _Plop plop plop_ into the eggs. Maybe ‘grating’ is a little generous.

Without waiting for the pan to warm up any further, he dumps the contents of the bowl into the pan, prods it with his spatula. Grabs the last two slices of bread from the cupboard and drops them into the toaster. Considers the bag of knockoff Cheetos and grabs them, too. 

“Fuck ‘em,” he says again around a mouthful of Not-Cheetos as he dumps his eggs into a bowl.

If Steve makes it through his meal purely out of spite, he doesn’t mind. He can be more than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- [here](https://youtu.be/WIMmbyNure4?t=5s) is a power snatch (basically, you're not breaking parallel in the squat)  
> \- I have probably said this a lot before, but weightlifting is frustrating. You can _have_ a lift and then you just. Move a little bit. And it's over. It's gone. And you try and try and try and you just _can't do it_ today.  
>  \- Steve would probably fight weightlifting in an alley if he could.  
> \- The second part of this chapter! Welcome to the progression that leads to Vehement Egg Hatred! Welcome to the process known as "bulking"! Steve's approach (the 'eat everything in sight' approach) is good for people on a limited budget, but then you also run the risk of a lot of fat gain in addition to muscle. Poor dude is probably aiming to be like a 105 or something but he's not gonna get there.  
> \- Have I mentioned Steve's total lack of chill?  
> \- 3 days ago (ish) [Kianoush Rostami](https://youtu.be/9h21X9siIwQ?t=28s) (IRI) broke the 85 kg class' world record for the clean & jerk! The record's been in place since '98. People who helicopter w their jerk always make me so nervous. Also, his speed under the bar is unreal. I'm.
> 
> Sorry this is so late! Between my training (which is going about as well as Steve's training) and being in the clinic for like 11 hours every day, I'm pretty much dead on my feet by the time I get home. I'll try to update again before Monday, at least.


	6. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vehement Egg Hatred: part one

It starts with ambivalence. He looks in the fridge, in the cupboards, and feels a blankness gnawing at his insides instead of hunger. The pasta doesn’t tempt him, nor does the leftover taco salad from earlier in the week. He looks at the pizza his mother ordered for his birthday and feels… nothing.

He neglects anything with any nutritional value until his insides feel like they’re rotting. When his mother comes home to find him stuffing his mouth full of microwaved broccoli chunks swimming in a pool of hot sauce, she merely gives him a look and says something about going to the store again.

It starts with ambivalence and, in the face of increased trips to the grocery store in a single-parent household, evolves into something like resentment. He eats 3 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the food sticks to the roof of his mouth. He washes it down with whole milk, and it leaves a bitter aftertaste.

And _eggs_.

If Steve never sees another egg in his life, he’ll be happy. He makes them every morning, five sizzling away in the pan. Sometimes he scrambles them, sometimes he drenches them with so much hot sauce that his mouth burns and his nose runs for hours. Other times he microwaves them and makes what might be the saddest egg sandwich that has ever tumbled onto the face of the earth.

One night, his mother brings home a bottle of soy sauce. For a few days, Steve thinks that his faith in eggs has been renewed.

Until he remembers that underneath the layers of salt, they’re still eggs.

Theatrics aside, when he steps on the scale, _50.2_ looks back at him. He might not see the changes in the mirror—scrawny arms, scrawny legs, bony hips—but the scale can only be so deceiving. _50.2_ is good. _50.2_ tells him he’s doing the right thing. 

The elation lasts him until he’s halfway through making his breakfast.

He sits down at the table with his bowl. 5 eggs, 4 microwave sausages (“ _4 boxes for 3 dollars!_ ”), spinach, and more hot sauce than he knows what to do with. Steve prods at the mass, watches it envelop his fork. 

For all that Steve complains about his eating, for all that he delights in the changes on the scale, his biggest victories are achieved in the gym. He storms in one day, clean and jerks so well that Fury’s only comments to him are “ _move up_ ” in increasingly appreciative tones until Steve’s got 50 kg on the bar and he’s snapping it up over his head like it’s nothing. 55 becomes 57 becomes 60. He throws it overhead with such force that he stumbles back with it, nearly toppling over with the effort of keeping the bar upright.

He comes in a different day and snatches 39 kilos with ease. Fury tells him to go to 42.

When he slips the little 1 kg change plates on either side, he resists the urge to make eye contact with Barnes, who’s been struggling all session. 60 kg flies behind him, hits the platform with a _crash_ that barely covers the other boy’s frustrated howl. 

“Take a rest, try it again,” Fury’s tone is almost sympathetic.

Barnes grunts in reply, throws himself into one of the folding chairs and crosses his arms. His gaze doesn’t leave the barbell, the force of his glare is enough that Steve imagines little wisps of smoke curling out of the rubber, the gradual heating of the metal.

“Rogers, you’re up.”

Some weightlifters approach the bar like a cat stalking its prey, all hunched shoulders and slow, deliberate steps. They watch the barbell like it’s something to be hunted, hackles raised, ears back. Predatory. 

Others shuffle onto the platform like they’re embarrassed to be there, swinging arms and quick steps. They don’t take time to stare down the bar, the audience, the judges. They step onto the platform, make the lift, and they’re gone almost before the weight hits the ground. Head bowed, eyes averted.

Steve takes the platform like someone leading troops into battle. His shoulders are back, head high, eyes fixed on a point somewhere in the distance. His movements are purposeful and confident, everything from the soft _thud_ of his shoes on the wood to the way he bends down to begin his setup.

Seconds tick by as he crouches there, arms at the edge of the knurling. He doesn’t hear so much as he _feels_ the silence in the room, weighing on him with each breath he takes.

In 

Out

There is no mantra this time. Only the violent tug on the bar, the aggressive _thunk_ off his hips followed by the _crack_ of his shoes on the platform.

He does not tip. 

Someone is yelling at him, the loud “ _STAND UP, YOU FUCK_ ” in a voice that is distinctly different from his coach's—

He

“ _ROGERS_ ,” Fury barks.

Steve stands.  


* * *

   
Five sessions a week becomes four sessions a week becomes three. Fury keeps things light. 20 kg overhead, one, two, three. 40 kg clean and jerk, the bar is light in his hands, feels like air when he splits with it. Three days becomes the day before the meet and Steve is absolutely certain he’s going to throw up in the chalk bucket. Fury, perhaps anticipating that Steve’s stomach is going to make a break for it, doesn't have him perform any of the lifts. Instead, they talk strategy.  
  
"I can hit 55 as an opener," he argues, praying that Fury doesn't recall the week before where his elbows buckled with 45 overhead. A mistake. He made it on his second attempt, but a miss is a miss.

Fury gives him a look. It's eerily similar to his mother's. "How's this," he says, "I'm gonna put you down for 50. If you take it in the warm up room and it looks good, I'll bump you up."

It's not a spectacular opening attempt, but it's what he's getting. Fury's 'proposals' never leave the recipient with any options.

Fury waits outside while Steve weighs himself. When he looks at the reading, his stomach drops. _49.8._ It’s nowhere near the _50.01_ he wanted, nowhere near the 56 class that he was aiming for. When he reports his weight to Fury, the words sit heavy on his tongue.

Fury gives him the same sympathetic look he gave Barnes, and it doesn’t suit him. Fortunately, if there are any pep talks to be had, Fury doesn’t give them and Steve can leave with at least a small amount of dignity intact.

On the subway, his stomach gurgles violently enough that he considers getting off a few stops early. He still might throw up, his nerves haven’t calmed down since he woke up.

The most worrying part is that technically this an improvement.

By the time evening rolls around Steve has paced their apartment at least 20 times, looked into each kitchen cabinet on 9 different occasions, and opened the fridge only to close it at least twice in the past hour. His stomach is in knots, his hands are sweaty, and while he knows he needs to eat any thought of food makes him want to run for the bathroom.

How do international competitors do it? They look so calm when they step onto the platform, so _ready_ , so not like their heart is going to claw its way back up their throat. Steve envies their calm, wishes he had inherited some of his mother’s patience, her ability to sit still for more than five minutes. Where she is stillness, is all quiet resilience, he is in constant motion. Maybe not physically, because sometimes his body doesn’t grant him that option, but mentally, emotionally. There is always a fire burning inside his chest.

In the end, he forces down a bowl of kraft macaroni and cheese with whole milk. The yellow powder congeals together on his fork, leaves his mouth feeling a little like he ate a couple boxes of crayons. 

Later, when he’s in bed having the worst sleep he’s ever had, he doesn’t think of his misses. Instead, he focuses on the feeling of the bar against his hips, the _crack_ of his shoes hitting the wood, the sensation of locking with the bar overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should maybe admit to myself that there is no definitive updating schedule with this fic. Sorry these end notes are always so long! I just get excited about everything.
> 
> \- I've never needed to bulk but I know enough people who _are_ bulking, and food gets really tiring after a while.  
>  \- There are different schools of thought wrt tapering before a meet, including those who say you should train even the day before.  
> \- There's a ton of drama in the weightlifting community right now because there was a call for a retest of all urine samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics due to some comments made by someone who was in charge of the doping tests in the Sochi Olympics. The IWF released the names of the London adverse findings (all big names, including [a world record holder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXqJN1PyD0E), a _second_ [world record holder, ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkEx8MoD2bs)[an olympic silver medalist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtZEWFv1_k), and a former [olympic gold medalist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K76V7-55q7Q)\-- all facing a 4 year ban).I am awful and watching this unfold v closely.  
>  \- This isn't illustrating anything but [here's](https://youtu.be/scTYGYjIM88?t=16m3s) a vid of Mohamed Ehab snatching 166 kg off the blocks. The first ~10 minutes of the video also has some neat warmup stuff from the Egyptian team which I always think is fun to watch (maybe that's just me)  
> \- I am Steve's vehement egg hatred.


	7. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The competition.

If Steve could puree his breakfast to make it go down easier, he would. As it stands, he manages half of his eggs and some bacon before his nerves decide that enough is enough and it’s time to panic indefinitely. His alarm goes off an hour after he’s already awake, the sun streaming through his bedroom window as if to mock him.

 _Look how nice it is outside_ , it says. _Too bad you’re running around your room like an asshole,_ it says.

Steve checks the clock for the hundredth time in an hour. His weigh-in is scheduled for noon, and the hour hand is creeping slowly toward the large number 7. Not counting travel time, he should make it. 

Unless

He stops shoving food into his bag long enough to consider the possibility of train delays. Of transit problems and late busses, incorrect schedules, _daylight saving’s time_. The threat of losing his breakfast becomes a very real possibility before he shakes himself free of his panic. Daylight Saving’s Time already happened. He checked the train schedule 7 times before going to sleep, and another 4 times after waking up. He read and re-read the directions that morning over his eggs. He’s going to Queens, for fucks sake, not the moon.

As he carefully places his singlet on top of his provisions, he frowns. In retrospect, the moon might be a better location.

The trip, including transfers and walking, takes a little over an hour. In the course of the trip, Steve checks the time every chance he gets, visions of disaster flitting through his head. He practically vibrates his way through the subway station, plays _Tubthumper_ on repeat until he thinks he knows the words to every song on the album. Plays “Tubthumping” just a few more times for good measure.

Barnes and Fury are already there when he arrives. The platform is empty save for an empty bar, perfectly centered. It is shiny and new, out of place in the basement full of equipment that looks like it’s seen better days. Better decades, perhaps.

Fury claps him on the shoulder when he approaches. “Glad you made it.” Steve offers him a tight smile, allows himself to be steered into a chair. He has half an hour until he weighs in, one of the first sessions of the day. 

“Just don’t fuck up,” Barnes tells him. He doesn’t look at Steve, choosing instead to scan the room, probably scoping out the competition. His weigh-in is a little after Steve’s, even if their weight classes are in the same session. If Steve wasn’t looking so closely, he’d say Barnes almost looks bored. This close, though, it’s easy to see the pinched look to his face, the way he has to blink a few times to keep his eyes open. “It’s easy.”

Steve glowers. “’ _Don’t fuck up_.’ Great. Thanks. I owe you one.” 

Barnes grins with all the smugness of their first meeting. Steve considers extending an offer to step out back and fight him, realizes that would not be conducive to a successful meet and instead applauds himself on his restraint. 

“Glad I could help.” Barnes claps him on the back a little too hard, and all Steve’s self-restraint almost goes out the window. 

Fuck Barnes.

Steve keeps his headphones on until he’s stepping into the bathroom to weigh in, attempt card in hand. He places his things on the toilet, feels his stomach churn a bit at the realization that he’s _here_ he’s actually _here_ and he’s doing a _meet_ just like

“Step on the scale,” the bored-looking woman instructs him, pointing at the little electric square on the floor. Steve stares at it like it’s going to bite him, looks back at the woman.

“Do I need to… to do anything?” He motions to his clothing, the loose _FURY BARBELL CLUB_ t-shirt and baggy basketball shorts. The scuffed sneakers on his feet.

She shrugs, makes a noncommittal noise. “Some people do, some don’t. Make a decision, kid, there are people waiting.”

Stripping in front of the volunteer is an experience that Steve quickly adds to his Most Uncomfortable Moments list. When he’s standing there in his underwear, the woman’s pointed look is what finally gets him on the scale.

_50.0_

It’s not the number he wants, not enough to get him to the 56 kg but it’s a step in the right direction. Steve would celebrate if he wasn’t feeling so exposed. If the woman wasn’t glaring at him like she asked him a question.

Oh.

“Openers?” She repeats, words slipping through gritted teeth. Steve considers telling her not to quit her day job, and applauds himself again on his brilliant self-restraint.

 _Good job_ , _Steve_.

“Uh. 35 and 50.”

She hands him the paper to initial, sends him on his way as soon as he’s slipped his shirt over his head. He stumbles out of the bathroom, shoeless, his skin a little too small for his body.

He doesn’t know what to do so he paces.

He paces and says nothing to Barnes, who lounges in his chair, shoving food into his mouth until he looks a little like a squirrel. Barnes didn’t weigh in light. Barnes is exactly where he needs to be. 

“Rogers, sit your ass _down_ ,” Fury growls for the fifth time in twenty minutes. Barnes pats the seat next to him, grins through what was probably peanut butter sandwich before he shoved it into his mouth whole.

Steve, who is about to explode with the sheer amount of energy inside him, looks pleadingly at his coach.

“I _can’t_ , I gotta—“ 

“Rogers.”

“I’m—“ 

“ _Sit. Down._ ”

Steve sits, ignores the overwhelming smell of peanut butter and jelly coming from his left.

They make a final call for weigh-ins just as Clint rushes into the basement. He looks disheveled, his bag half-open over his shoulder and his USAW card clutched triumphantly in his hand. When he rushes past them, Steve can barely understand the words coming out of his mouth.

“HeysorryI’mlateIlostmycardonthemetroandhadtogobacktofinditcanyoubelieveitwowholyshitlookitthetimeshitNickI’msosorry.”

Fury, who looks a little like this isn’t the first time Clint’s come to a meet just before weigh-in closes, mumbles something about watching “ _fuckin’ youth lifters_ ” being like “ _herding a damn group of cats_ ” and stalks off to talk to some of his older, calmer competitors.

“Rogers.”

Steve slips his headphones on.

“ _Rogers_.”

_I get knocked down, but I get up again  
_ _You are never gonna keep me down_

Someone tugs his earbud out of his ears, leans in close. Steve smells peanut butter and what is quite possibly chocolate, tries not to gag at the breath hot on his ear. 

“ _Steve_.”

He turns so quickly that he nearly unseats himself, comes face-to-face with Barnes who still has one of Steve’s earbuds in his hand and the biggest shit-eating grin on his face.

“ _What_?”

“Chumbawamba? _Really_?”

Steve grabs the earbud out of Barnes' hand and scowls at him. He _likes_ Chumbawamba. He would tell Barnes as much, if Barnes didn’t choose that moment to shove a sandwich in Steve’s general direction. It smells like Nutella and bananas.

“Eat it.”

“ _You_ eat it.” It’s a weak comeback, but Barnes looks positively delighted.

“You’re not gonna lift well if you don’t eat,” he says, shoving the sandwich dangerously close to Steve’s face. “Eat the sandwich, Rogers.” 

Steve slaps his hands away, slips his earbud back in his ear. “Fuck off.”

“ _Steeeeeve_.”

Fortunately at that moment Clint throws himself into the chair on Barnes’ left, effectively distracting him so Steve can panic in peace. 

_He sings the songs that remind him of the good times  
_ _He sings the songs that remind him of the best times_

The next time anyone rouses him from his anxiety-induced stupor, it’s so he can join the others on the platform. Clint, who weighed in heavy, moves from the 56 class to the 64 and thus changes sessions. Steve sees him from the platform, slouched in his chair, eating what appears to be leftover slices of pizza.

They’re introduced one by one, boys who step forward and give the small crowd a wave. Sometimes they’re met by cheers, other times by silence. When Steve raises a hand in greeting, Clint whoops so loudly that Fury slaps him on the back of the head. 

As soon as they file off the platform, Steve has his headphones in again.

_I get knocked down (we’ll be singing) but I get up again  
_ _You’re never gonna keep me down (when we’re winning)_

He moves slowly through his warmups, adds some additional stretches for his stiff shoulders, his tight hips. He wishes his mother didn’t have to work, that she could see him lift like the men on the television. It’s a childish thought that he’ll kick himself for later, but with the PVC pipe in hand and his shoes making the sharp _crack_ ing sound against the wood of the warmup platforms, he grants himself the lapse in maturity.

_I get knocked down (we’ll be singing)_  
_But I get up again (pissing the night away)_  
_You’re never gonna keep me down (when we’re winning)  
_ _I get_

Just as he’s the first one Fury hurries into his warmup lifts, he’s the first to step out onto the competition platform. He can hear a basketball game going on upstairs, the honk of cars outside. The world continues to spin even as his own reality slows. 

One bar.

Two big, white plates.

Two collars.

The clock buzzes, and suddenly everything is moving too fast. He forgoes the chalk, stepping immediately onto the wood with a soft _thunk_. His eyes search out a spot somewhere over the spectators’ heads, he crouches down, and begins.

The bar leaves the ground, his body propelled backward, elbows bending, pulling until he drops down until he feels it overhead, feels his arms locking _tighttighttight_  

“ _Down!_ ”

Steve doesn’t immediately drop the bar, too caught up in his own adrenaline to register the signal until he sees the center judge waving his hand in a downward motion with increasing amusement on his face. The plastic plates hit the platform but they don’t bounce, not like the greens, the yellows, the blues and reds. 

He feels something in his chest release at the sound of the audiences’ applause. Suddenly bursting with confidence, Steve gives a small wave before hopping off the platform. He _did it_ he can _do this_ he can _absolutely qualify,_ he

makes 40 in the same way he makes 35, an easy lift that has Fury pounding him on the back as he stares in awe at the three white lights. 2 kg below his max.

43 goes up with ease. Steve stands up and feels his heart soar. Somewhere in the audience he can hear Clint yelling over the polite applause of the rest of the spectators. Can hear Fury growl “shut the fuck _up, Barton_.”

In the 10 minutes between the snatch and the clean and jerk, he sits near the warm up platforms and stuffs his face with all the sandwiches in his bag. He eats until he feels sick, until his heart has stopped pounding. His body feels heavy and weightless at the same time, like someone filled a lead balloon with air and is trying to keep it off the ground. He slumps in his chair, listens as Barnes is given the down signal. 3 white lights for a 65 kg snatch and just like that, he’s qualified before he even has to clean and jerk.

The dull pang of jealousy is easily drowned out by the introduction of more peanut butter and jelly into his mouth. He chews a little, drinks some water to free the peanut butter from the roof of his mouth. Barnes rushes off the platform and gives him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

“See! _Easy_.”

Steve swallows his food and nods slowly. He’s reluctant to admit that Barnes was right, that all he had to do was _not fuck up_. 

“—only three more to go, you gotta fuel up otherwise you’re gonna fall asleep, swear t’ christ, Steve. How many sandwiches did you pack?” Through the haze of exhaustion and whatever adrenaline remains in his body, he realizes that Barnes is digging through his gym bag.

“Three,” he manages around another mouthful of sandwich. “I brought three.”

Barnes scoffs, reaches into his own bag and produces another Nutella sandwich. “ _Three_ sandwiches. Only _three_.” He shoves the monstrosity in Steve’s general direction, makes little airplane noises. “C’mon Steve, open up.” 

“I’m not—“

“Here comes the plane.” 

“I’m—“ 

“ _The fuckin’ plane, Steven._ ”

“Don’t call m—“

“Eat the fuckin’ sandwich, asshole, you’ll thank me later.”

Steve is still batting Barnes’ hands away when Fury appears with a delighted Clint in tow. He’s already in his singlet, munching on what looks like one of Barnes’ apparently ubiquitous sandwiches. When he holds out his hand, Steve gives him an enthusiastic high-five.

“You’re _killing it_ ,” he says, the magnitude of his words only lessened somewhat by the fact that Steve can see every piece of sandwich in his mouth that has yet to be ingested. He wonders what so many people on this team have against swallowing their food before they speak. From the look on Fury’s face, he’s wondering the same thing.

“Nick!” Barnes sounds positively _relieved_ to see his coach. “Tell Steve to eat another sandwich, _tell him_ tell him he’s gotta—“ 

“Barnes. What did we say about inside voices.” Fury’s bored tone is shot through with exasperation. Barnes, to his credit, does not deflate as easily as someone else might have under the force of Fury’s gaze.

“He’s gotta eat, he only packed three—“

“ _Three_ is just _fine_ , Barnes,” Fury says, voice low. A warning.

Barnes falls silent, sits down with a huff. 

When they reconvene for the clean and jerks, Steve is wondering if he shouldn’t have accepted Barnes’ sandwich. His own food has given him energy, but it’s not the same as that rush that preceded the snatch. His legs feel shaky, the bar weighing heavy on his shoulders even as he warms up with weights well below his max.

Like the snatches, he is the first to step onto the platform.

50 kg comes up nicely. He prepares himself for the inevitable dip and drive, the split. The descent is slow, steady just like Fury taught him and

the buzzer sounds as the bar falls to the platform, too much push and not enough power. Steve internally kicks himself, curses his legs for their lack of cooperation. 50 is well below what he’s capable of, 50 is _easy_ , 50 shouldn’t be a miss.

Fury is there to receive him as he comes off the platform, rubs his shoulders while he stands there and shakes with anger or embarrassment, he’s not sure which.

“Two more,” he says, comforting in a way Steve has never seen him. “Don’t get upset, you get two more." 

The next time Steve comes out onto the platform he’s met with more than polite applause. There are the occasional “ _come on!_ ”s from the crowd, the intermittent whoops of support. The anger is still there, but he tries to channel it into his lift. He _has to qualify_ he _needs_ to he

It’s a power clean, caught so high that it’s almost laughable. Steve jerks his head back, tries to get some air in his lungs. Shuffles his feet, his hands. Takes one breath, two, three, dips and

When he opens his eyes, the three judges have their backs to him, arms clasped in front as Fury shakes his shoulder, trying to rouse him. The bar rests off to the side of the platform and he

is crumpled somewhere near the back.

“You dizzy?” Fury asks. Steve shakes his head “no” only to nod when the whole world spins.

“Take some deep breaths. Deeper than that. Breathe in nice and slow.”

Steve does as he’s told, tries to push aside the embarrassment of passing out on the platform with only 50 kg on his shoulders. The next time Fury asks if he’s okay he nods, allows himself to be helped up.

As he stumbles off the competition platform he’s met with applause, feels something he quickly and easily identifies as shame.

“Up to trying again?”

Steve takes another deep breath, squares his shoulders, nods.

It comes as no surprise when he misses the next clean, pulls it up to his waist and lets it drop, not enough power left in his pull to get it up and onto his shoulders. He shakes his head, doesn’t bother looking to see the three red lights on the scoreboard next to his name.

He sticks around to watch Barnes qualify for both Youth and Junior Nationals with a 77 kg clean and jerk. Barnes, who lets out a triumphant yell when he’s given the down signal. Steve’s stomach churns again, out of jealousy this time more than anxiety.

When he comes off the platform, Barnes claps him on the shoulder again. His expression is serious despite his theatrics only moments before. Steve tries not to quake under Barnes’ hand, tries to school his expression into something a little more blank, a little less gutted.

“You’ll get it, Steve. You’ll get it.” 

Steve doesn’t stick around to watch Clint qualify. Doesn’t think he could handle it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I hate Chumbawamba, I don't know what possessed me to make Steve a huge Chumbawamba fan. I'm so sorry.  
> \- Lost Battalion Hall is a real place in Queens! Their weightlifting stuff is literally in a basement.  
> \- Bucky and Clint had to cut for this meet, which explains all the food (Clint was not successful as Bucky was, but). Steve, who was trying for the weight class above his, was not cutting.  
> \- Anyway one of the most useful pieces of advice I've ever received from any of my coaches has been "sit down" because otherwise you wear yourself out and competition is approximately a million times more stressful than regular training so you need to save your energy. _Especially_ during the clean and jerk, because you've pretty much acclimated to the stress of the competition environment but where the snatch is a v technical lift the clean and jerk requires a lot more brute strength and aggression. So you need that energy. Eat between the snatch and the clean and jerk, and sit your ass down.  
>  \- During lifts, you can [pass out](https://youtu.be/uuZJB-jv0AA?t=30s). This can be caused by dehydration from cutting weight, or sometimes the bar can press on the carotid artery and deprive the brain of oxygen. Fun stuff!  
> \- [Here](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/post/146456730183/how-weightlifting-meets-work) is a detailed explanation of weightlifting meets because this note is already too long.  
> \- [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAT26CL_cXU) is a fun documentary the IWF put out to educate the public on the sport of olympic weightlifting! It includes a v helpful section on how competitions are run.  
> \- Have I mentioned how sorry I am that Steve is a Chumbawamba fan?


	8. seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feels like progress.

At first glance, the gym appears to be closed. The platforms are silent, bars all racked neatly against the wall or in their respective squat racks. There is no deafening music, no clatter of plates against collars. 

Steve considers coming back at a time when he can sneak in more inconspicuously, when there will be other voices to cover the sound of his footsteps on the concrete floor, the soft _thump_ of his gym bag against the wall. The competition was only a few days ago, and the embarrassment still sits heavy in his chest. Ties his stomach into careful knots, too small for any platitudes to undo.

And, he thinks, he wouldn’t want them, anyway. Knows that, on some level, this is what being a weightlifter is. What _part_ of being a weightlifter is. The ability to pick himself up after a subpar performance, to keep running headfirst into that brick wall that sits neatly between himself and what he wants now more than anything. 

He frowns as he undoes the knots in his shoelaces, shoves his foot inside the shoe as soon as the they feel lose enough. Perhaps the ‘brick wall’ metaphor isn’t the most appropriate comparison, given his performance. He does up the laces, makes sure the velcro is secure before standing, giving his legs a shake just to wake them up a bit. 

“Look who’s back.” 

Steve doesn’t jump, just like he doesn’t feel that embarrassment drop like a boulder into his gut. His thoughts flit to his idols, the international weightlifters. Dimas. Kakhiashvili. Kołecki. Surely they have training sessions that are less-than-ideal. Shitty training partners, maybe they get a bad bar, not enough plates, improper warm-ups—

“—think you’re not welcome here, yanno? Everyone’s first meet is a shitshow. Probably. Hodge threw up on the platform his first time—“

He turns around to glare at Barnes, who’s got one leg up on a foam roller and the other tucked beneath him, mouth still going a mile a minute as he works out the knots in his muscles.

“—I mean _I_ don’t think I ever did that bad, there was one time I dropped the bar off the platform that was pretty bad, I—“

What really gets to Steve, is that he just _keeps going_. The force of his glare appears to be doing nothing, like he doesn’t even pick up on the fact that the _only other person_ in the _entire gym_ is giving him a look that could quite possibly kill, if given the chance. Just talking and rolling, like Steve’s got all the time in the world.

“Barnes.”

“—gotta pick yourself up? That’s a thing, right? That sounds like a thing, you’ll—“

“ _Barnes_.”

“—and b’sides you did fine, there’s gonna be other meets the qualifying totals aren’t even due until like. _September_. I just needed t’get mine in so—“

Steve’s scowl deepens. Barnes, suddenly aware of his conversational partner’s silence, looks up in confusion.

“Wha?”

And a million timelines open up in front of Steve, a million possibilities because there is _so much_ he’d like to say to Barnes. All ranging from “ _shut up, you asshole_ ” to “ _sometimes I want to hit you in your stupid smug face_ ”. The options are overwhelming, the force of his resentment suddenly given so many outlets that for a moment he just stands there and gapes.

 _Like a fuckin loser_ , his mind supplies, helpfully.

“Just.” He takes a deep breath, steadies himself because for all the choices available to him, Barnes has just as many. Prepares for the worst. “Shut up.”

Barnes stares. If his mouth stays open any longer, Steve thinks he might catch a couple of flies.

“Just shut the fuck up.”

“Yeah but—“

“I don’t _need_ your help,” he growls, losing some of that resolve he’d tried so hard to gather prior to even setting foot in the gym. “I just need you to _shut up_.” He wonders if Fury can hear them from his office. If he’s letting this run its course because he saw it coming or if he just doesn’t want to get involved. 

Barnes looks like he wants to say something, like he’s itching to make _some_ kind of comment, but takes in Steve’s expression, the fists balled at his sides, and finally closes his mouth. No flies. 

The rest of the training is done in silence, the only sound between them the harsh release of breath during a lift, their shoes hitting their respective platforms. Sometimes Steve feels Barnes’ eyes on him, but he keeps his gaze fixed on the picture across from his platform. The Clean and Press. He looks at it so much that his eyes go there naturally, searching out the little details that he overlooked before.

Head down, eyes forward.

It’s only been a week since the competition, and Fury’s program reflects that. Light complexes, the movements flowing into one another and making Steve’s heart race. One clean pull, one clean, one hang clean. Press, push press, power jerk, jerk. He’s dripping in sweat and he’s not even halfway through. The little white plates on his bar feel like the heaviest weight in the world.

Across the gym, Barnes’ bar clatters to the platform, the soft “ _fuck_ ” telling Steve that not everything went as planned.

Fury exits his office occasionally, to check on the state of their workouts or to make sure they haven’t killed each other, Steve isn’t sure. Isn’t going to worry about it, instead channeling the residual resentment into his lifting. His cleans feel sharp, vicious. His jerks accurate and aggressive in a way his lifts in competition _weren’t_.

It feels like progress.

 

* * *

 

The students start coming in the afternoons, the early evenings. Their shoulders slump under the weight of heavy backpacks. They yawn and rub their eyes like they haven’t slept in weeks, grumble about “ _got a fuckin essay due tomorrow_ ”, “ _hundred pages by Tuesday!_ ” and go about their lifts with exhaustion etched into every movement they make. 

The beginning of the school year is, Steve thinks, officially upon them. And he dreads it.

Clint is the first of the youth lifters to go back. Steve misses his commentary on the platforms, his ridiculous misses and his even more horrifying makes. Misses his presence as a buffer between himself and Barnes. 

Barnes, who seems to have forgotten Steve’s instructions to _shut the fuck up_. 

“C’mon Steve!”

Steve tries to block him out. Clean and Press. Think of the Clean and Press. Think—

He gets caught in the bottom of the clean, 60 kg weighing heavy on his shoulders as he bounces once, twice, three times until his legs finally get with the program and help him up out of the hole. Then he’s standing, pops the bar off his shoulders like it’s nothing. There’s no time to wonder where that power was moments ago, whether he’s got enough air to last him through the rest of the lift because he’s already dipping. Pushes hard with his legs and feels that moment of weightlessness between the bar driving off his shoulders and sticking overhead.

It feels like slow motion.

Feels like slow motion until he’s locked out, his arms protesting the weight above his head, quaking with the effort of holding 60 kg over his head.

Someone is cheering, he thinks distantly as he drops the bar to the platform with a _crash_. His own face feels tight, like something is tugging on it until it splits down the middle. It takes him another moment, another beat where he registers someone _slapping him so hard on the back he feels like he’s going to fall over_ to realize that he’s smiling, he’s smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt.

He whirls around, grabs the person slapping him on the back by the shoulders, would shake them if his arms still worked. “ _Sixty fucking kilos_ ,” he yells excitedly.

“ _Sixty fucking kilos,_ ” Barns yells back, not mentioning the fact that Steve maybe just spit all over his face. If he noticed at all, which is another possibility altogether. Steve feels himself moving back and forth, realizes that Barnes is shaking him much like Steve had wanted to do to Barnes only moments before. He stumbles a little, wishing his legs felt a little more solid. “ _Sixty! Fucking! Kilos!_ ” Barnes shakes him on every word.

A surprised laugh bursts out of Steve’s mouth. Unexpected warmth in his chest.

Steve finally breaks away from Barnes’ grip and allows himself to collapse into one of the folding chairs, leaves his legs out in front of him like he’s trying to trip the next person that walks by. Barnes claps him on the shoulder again, walks over to his platform where he’s set up for squats. All he can do is stare at the bar, at the two blue 20 kg plates on either end. _60 kg_.

“Done with those,” Fury says, having appeared off to his left at some unknown point. Points to the bar. “Squats now.”

Steve sinks deeper into the chair, now eyeing the bar in dismay. Fuck squats.

The students are just stumbling in when they finish their session, and Steve willingly parts with his platform, his plates, his bar. Hands it all off to Clint after telling him about his PR and earning another slap on the back and a series of increasingly elaborate high-fives until his palms are stinging. 

Clint is still giving him enthusiastic thumbs-ups from across the room as he cools down, going through every stretch he knows in an attempt to stave off the unbearable muscle soreness he knows will set in in a few hours. The next morning, if he’s lucky.

“Steve.”

He looks up from where he’s sprawled over a foam roller doing a poor impression of Someone Who Is Cooling Down. Barnes is standing over him, shaker bottle in hand. It’s a strange brown color, smells a little like chocolate when Barnes squats down so he’s not talking down at him.

Steve’s maybe a little flattered.

Barnes takes a drink, makes a face that Steve would have missed if he hadn’t been paying attention, waiting for Barnes to say whatever it is he wants to say. The longer the silence stretches, the tenser he feels, coiled tight like a spring until Barnes finally opens his mouth again.

“The pool closes next week.”

Steve nods a little, a _go on_ sort of gesture because he’s not exactly following where Barnes is going with this. Barnes doesn’t seem to know where he’s going either, because he frowns at his protein shake and takes another drink.

“ _And_?” Can’t Barnes see that he’s doing his cool down routine? Steve moves a little over the foam roller, winces as a knot in his quad catches on one of the little knobs. Weighs the merits of throwing the foam roller across the room. Fuck foam rolling, anyway.

“ _And_ ,” Barnes says, the ‘ _you asshole_ ’ an unspoken addition, “I’m going to the pool.”

He’s going to the pool. That’s great. Steve has no idea why Barnes wants him to know this information, so he just nods. He rolls a little bit over the knot in his quad again and tries not to look like it’s actually the most painful experience of his day thus far.

There’s another silence. This conversation might be joining rolling out his quads on that list.

“—with me?”

“What?”

Barnes pauses, shaker bottle halfway to his mouth. The look he gives Steve falls somewhere between pained and withering. When he speaks, he doesn’t bring the bottle down and his voice sounds a little strange, a little like he’s speaking through a tin can with one end still closed. 

“The pool. Wanna go to the pool?” He says it slowly, like Steve’s problem was the speed and not the fact that he just wasn’t paying attention.

Again, millions of choices before him. The option of completely shutting Barnes down, of laughing in his face, of continuing to foam roll like Barnes isn’t still squatting in front of him, shaker bottle _still_ halfway to his mouth like he forgot it there.

Except.

He thinks of his PR, the abrupt ‘come on, Steve’ in the otherwise silent gym. The hand on his back, the enthusiastic ‘ _sixty! fucking! kilos!_ ’

Barnes finally takes another sip of his protein shake, pulls a face.

At the competition, ‘ _you’ll get it, Steve_ ’. The sandwiches. His whole body feels like it’s been filled with cement, can’t imagine himself floating in water.

Steve rolls over the knot in his quad again. Feels something start to give.

God damn it. 

“Yeah, Bucky.” It rolls off his tongue like it’s natural. Like those words are meant to be there. “Lemme just get my suit first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm just gonna write a lil bridge before a time jump into high school, no big deal" [writes the second longest chapter in this whole damn fic] why @ me.
> 
> \- Not everyone's first meet is a shitshow, tbh, but it's worth noting that shitshows are possible at all levels of experience.  
> \- [this](http://s7d9.scene7.com/is/image/BedBathandBeyond/71950245527135p?%24478%24) is one of many types of foam rollers. Sometimes they're just cylinders, sometimes they have little bumps or something. They're horrible 100% of the time.  
> \- Out of all the weightlifting shoes, Steve probs owns the [VS Athletics](https://www.vsathletics.com/store/images/D/vs010fit.jpg). They're among the cheaper, more durable weightlifting shoes. They don't have the flash of, say, the [Nike Romaleos](http://nur-interior.ru/ebay/images/romaleo03.jpg) (which are huge now) but they're _good_ (or so I've heard-- I own adidas [power perfects](http://vikingweightlifting.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/adidas-Power-Perfect-2.jpg)). Literally they're like $60, and the other brands can run up to over $200, depending.  
>  \- Someday maybe I'll make a post on the blog about what weightlifting shoe everyone owns. I have a mental list.  
> \- I can't find a good video illustrating the hang clean but know that 'hang' anything refers to beginning the lift at about mid-thigh.  
> \- "Head down eyes forward" is some kind of weird quote idk a lot of weightlifters say it idk what the origin is.  
> \- Look at Bucky trying to be An Actual Friend. You're trying so hard, pal.  
> \- Junior Worlds happened this last week! So many young lifters doing so many cool things!
> 
> Thank you everyone for all of your comments so far! I really appreciate it.


	9. eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 2008 Olympics, but not really.

“ _Just get a gym bag!_ ”

“It won’t fit in my locker!”

“ _You’re gonna get all hunched over by the time you’re twenty-five and it’ll be your own fault._ ”

He snorts. “Buck, I’m pretty sure _anyone_ carrying this much is—“

“ _Twenty-five, Rogers._ ”

“Uh-huh.”

Steve nudges the bag at his feet. It doesn’t so much as budge, his foot not even going so far as to make an indentation in the overstuffed pack. His old gym bag met an unfortunate end when its zipper came off, too much rough handling coupled with years of usage. A new one seemed excessive, something that he might ask for on a birthday or closer to Christmas, but certainly not in the middle of February.

Besides, his backpack seemed perfectly capable of accommodating all his gym gear.

As the subway comes to a halt, Steve stands and makes an effort not to bowl anyone over with his bag as he exits the train. Bucky is still talking to him over the phone, his voice caught up somewhere in the chaos of the platform. Occasionally Steve catches a few words here and there “ _hurry up_ ”, “ _be late_ ”, and “ _your piece of shit backpack_ ” are among the most memorable. As Steve yanks his backpack off the floor his shoulders—still sore from training several days before—protest the movement. 

His backpack really does feel like it’s full of rocks.

“ _Steve_?”

The air outside doesn’t feel much better than the air underground, but he takes a deep breath none-the-less.

“Yeah?”

There’s a pause on the other end, sounds of environmental noise indicating that for all his complaints about ‘being late’, Bucky is probably just as far away from the gym as he is. 

“ _Thought you fell onto the tracks._ Anyway— _“_ The rest of Bucky’s words are swallowed by the thump of the bass, the electronic beat that seems to be a constant fixture in Fury Barbell Club. Steve looks around at the platforms, most of them empty on early Saturday morning. Clint sits quietly in the chair behind his platform, taking alternating sips of pre-workout and coffee.

Steve waves at him.

Clint, ever the morning person, slumps forward in his chair until he’s hunched protectively over both of his drink receptacles, like a dragon shielding its treasures. 

Bucky is nowhere to be found.

“— _nearly hit the roof, Becca’s in so much shit I can’t—_ “ 

“What happened to ‘we’re gonna be late’?”

There’s a pause on the other end, Bucky’s voice mixing with what sounds a little like the familiar screech of the subway. “ _Huh_?” 

“ _Late_ , you asshole! You said _we_ were gonna be late. Where are _you_?” 

Another pause, this time with some underlying feeling of guilt, unless Steve’s reading too much into things. “ _Yeah, well._ ” The sound of Bucky pulling his phone away from his ear to talk to someone near him, his voice muffled momentarily. When Bucky comes back on, he sounds a little less embarrassed a little more like his usual, confident self. “ _I missed th’ train_.” 

Steve scoffs, ignores the litany of fond insults that filter through the phone. “You know what they say, Buck. ‘If you’re not early, you drop a snatch on your head and end up in the—‘” 

“ _Who the fuck says that, who in the actual fuck—_ “

“It’s a _saying_ —“

“ _Fuck_ you _!_ ” Bucky’s laughing as he says it, and the words don’t sting nearly as much as they would have several years before. Before Steve can get another word in, Bucky’s ended the call. Steve tosses his phone on top of his bag and slips off his shoes.

He goes through his warm-up in his socks. The shoulder stretches are especially difficult today, his muscles aching with every shoulder dislocation and PVC pass-through. Steve’s not one to keep his hopes up where Fury’s programming is concerned, but for a moment he dares to imagine a world where Fury _won’t_ ask him to do strict presses following several rounds of jerks (for reps, if he’s feeling like it). Maybe some light cleans, a couple sets of squats. Something to keep him moving but not enough to leave him completely incapacitated.

A guy can dream, anyway.

When his shoulders feel less like two cement blocks attached to his torso, he puts on his shoes and wanders over to the rack of bumper plates. He hauls the 25 kg plate out, crouches down, and balances it on his knees. The muscles in his legs and ankles contract before relaxing bit by bit.

“You buy the wrong size shirt again, or d’you just like ‘em like that?” 

Steve puts all his energy into not losing his balance and dropping the 25 kg plate on his own foot. The best course of action would be to somehow angle his body so the plate landed on _Bucky_ ’s foot, but as his friend is standing behind him he can’t see a scenario in which that would work. 

What an asshole.

He makes a point of _not_ glancing over his shoulder in Bucky’s direction. Tells himself that Bucky’s just jealous because Steve, in addition to jumping up to a ( _light_ ) member of the 77 kg class, has also managed to put on more muscle than him. 

The mat beneath Steve gives way as Bucky sits down beside him, begins a series of increasingly alarming stretches that Steve is fairly certain normal people shouldn’t be able to do. 

“You’re not enjoying the view?”

Steve sneaks a glance in Bucky’s direction, sees the other staring at him incredulously.

“I mean, if I gotta stare at _someone_ I might as well stare at _you_.”

Steve, out of the goodness of his heart, doesn’t point out that Bucky’s platform is right next to his so if he’s going to stare at _anyone_ he’s going to be staring at Clint.

Clint, who appears to be nearly asleep in his chair.

“Why even come in on Saturdays if you’re gonna be this out of it?” Bucky calls. He’s laying back, his legs bent in such a way that they’re on either side of his torso. Steve’s legs ache just looking at him.

Clint startles, glares in Bucky’s direction. “It’s called _warming up_ , Barnes. Not _everyone’s_ flexible enough to suck their own dick.”  
  
Bucky waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “You want me to teach you?” 

“Nah thanks, I’ll,” Clint’s sentence is interrupted by a monstrous yawn, “I’ll pass.”

“Your loss, bud.”

Clint opens his mouth to comment but abruptly closes it as Fury exits his office. His eyes roam the room, taking in the empty platform, Clint still hunched over his drink containers, Bucky now stretching his shoulders against the rack of barbells, and Steve still crouching with the plate still balanced precariously on his knees. With the exception of the three of them, the gym is empty. 

Finally, Fury sighs, shakes his head. “I don’t know why I bother with these early hours.”

“Love, probably,” Bucky responds. Fury gives him a look so potent that Steve nearly recoils from it, but Bucky seems unaffected. He carefully selects an Eleiko bar from the rack, carries it over to his platform, and begins his warm-up. Fury’s eyes follow him the whole way.

“Love has nothing to do with it, Barnes,” he growls, before making his way over to the large whiteboard along the wall to write the day’s training. Steve’s heart practically breaks when he sees “4x4 power jerks” followed by “4x2 heavy push press” written in red expo marker. Power jerks. His poor shoulders.

Bucky and Clint have already started by the time Steve manages to drag himself over to the rack. He grabs an old Eleiko bar, the knurling so worn down that there’s only a slight roughness under his fingers. He carries it carefully over to the rack and begins warming up. Presses with the bar transitions into push press transitions into push jerks.

Steve struggles through his power jerks. He slogs his way through push press, managing to hit a questionable 70 kg for a double (earning a loud “ _WEAK”_ from Clint’s platform) before failing to generate enough power to drive 72 kg off his chest. By the time front squats (“ _for reps of 5? Nick, that’s practically_ cardio _!”_ ) come around, he’s all but hanging off his squat rack, waiting for his body to accept the very real limitations with which it’s been confronted.

He loads 80 onto the bar, begins his warm-up sets and feels like he’s being drilled repeatedly into the floor.

On the adjacent platform, Bucky gives him A Look. “Maybe stay with that.”

Steve gives him a Look right back. “Fury’ll—“

Bucky scoffs. Steve wonders if Bucky’s lack of fear is an evolutionary advantage or a flaw.

“Fury understands. Remember that time you got the flu and you came in anyway?” Steve doesn’t remember, but nods in agreement anyway. He’s had enough rough winters (and summers, and springs, and--) in his lifetime that it’s plausible. Besides, he has a couple hazy memories of Bucky shoving tissues and garbage bins in his face, and they have to mean _something_. 

“So _chill_.” 

Steve, who is fully capable of chilling regardless of what anyone says, grinds through his sets with 80. He collapses into his chair, his legs developing a pulse that beats in tandem with the pulse in his shoulders. If he wasn’t more aware of his surroundings, he’d think someone filled his body with lead. 

“Ready?”

A distinctly Bucky-shaped shadow looms over him, bag slung over his shoulder like he didn’t just finish 5x5 front squats. Like he’s not on the verge of simultaneously shoving an entire pizza in his mouth and throwing up. The nerve of some people.

“For what?”

Bucky looks at him incredulously, like through that look alone Steve will be able to divine what it is he’s supposed to be ready for. Steve slumps a little lower in his chair, purposefully shoving at Bucky with his feet until he takes a step back.

“For _the Olympics_! Christ, Steve d’you live under a rock?”

“I mean—“

“C’mon, we gotta go or we’re gonna miss it—“ 

“Buck, I’m pretty sure they don’t start until like. 3 AM.” 

Bucky raises his voice several octaves in a poor attempt at mockery. “ _I’m pretty sure they don’t start until 3 AM_ you know what it’s attitudes like _that_ that make us _miss the Olympics_.”

“3 AM isn’t missing the Olympics, why do you keep thinking we’re gonna miss the Olympics?”

“ _Steven_.” 

Steve leaves with Bucky, but only after the most excruciatingly slow clean-up process he can manage.

They are still early to watch the Olympics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in updating! Between midterms and my own training stuff I've been running on caffeine and stress for like the last 2 weeks.
> 
> Some notes:  
> \- Steve is ~17 years old here. I know this because I made a note to myself that says "steve is the dancing queen also watching 2008 olympics what up", but also because this actually works with the timeline which is p convenient.  
> \- Out of all the US weightlifters in the 2008 olympics,[Kendrick Farris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0OByjPqq_Q), [Melanie Roach](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm0wnFi31uw), and [Cheryl Haworth](https://youtu.be/T4nb1jQjsx4) placed the highest, but none of them medaled. Fun fact: Farris will be representing the US in Rio!  
> \- Bucky is a v flexible individual, [here](https://youtu.be/x522dB-4y2w?t=1m29s)'s some stretches he probably does to warm up, because he's awful. [here](http://www.allthingsgym.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/heavy-barbel-ankle-stretch-w800.jpg) is a variation of what Steve does to stretch his ankles.  
> \- [this](https://youtu.be/vcr9KiBrEHg?t=35s) is a behind the neck push press. A regular push press is performed using the front rack position. It's good for your shoulders and triceps but there's also some leg involvement.  
> \- You don't think 5 reps is cardio but it is.  
> \- Steve's phone is probably a brick. I'm just. Establishing that fact right now.  
> \- I actually have a deleted scene from this chapter! Who knew.


	10. nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2009 Senior Nationals

“On your heels! On your heels!”

There’s a moment of silence, punctuated by a ragged breath as his chest heaves, his head jerks back as if anticipating the path of the bar. What can’t be more than a handful of seconds feels like a lifetime but it’s enough for him to catch his breath, adjust his stance, and dip.

The switch between the dip and the drive is imperceptible, one minute he’s moving down and the next he’s up, the bar held with shaking arms.

“Stay tight!”

“Reach! _Reach!_ ”

One foot scrapes against the wood of the platform, a familiar _one-two_ and then he’s not so much ‘letting the bar down’ as he is throwing it with all the strength he has left, 138 kg landing hard on the platform with a _thud_.

There’s silence, and then there’s chaos. 

Steve knows he’s yelling, knows he’s practically bouncing in all his excitement, but can’t for the life of him tell what he’s saying past “YOU _MOTHERFUCKER_ ”. His voice gets caught up in the music over the speakers, in the similar sentiments voiced by the other members of the team. Perhaps it’s for the best that Bucky isn’t saying anything, is still staring incredulously at the bar on the platform like he can’t quite comprehend what just took place. His mouth doesn’t quite hang open, but it’s a thin line that risks crossing with every passing moment. 

138 kg.

He slaps Bucky hard on the back, quick to steady him when he stumbles. Bucky’s eyes are still fixed on the bar, realization slowly dawning on his features.

“I did that?” 

“You did that!”

“I did that!” Bucky looks from the bar to Steve and back again, like he’s not entirely sure what just transpired, like he wasn’t the one recently throwing himself under the bar. 

Steve briefly considers a rendition of “you motherfucker”, complete with shoulder-shaking for emphasis. Instead he just nods, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s the one who just put the weight up, like he’s the one going to nationals in a week.

“That,” Bucky gestures incredulously to the bar, looking a little unsteady the longer he’s on his feet but shoving Steve away when he tries to steer him into the little plastic chair. “That was _me_. I did that.”

“ _Christ_.” 

“That was me? That. Was me.”

“Yes, oh my god—“

“Me?”

Steve tries again, unsuccessfully, to push Bucky in the direction of the chair. “ _Yes_ , can you just—“

Bucky slaps his hands away again. “No, I gotta make sure, I gotta—“ 

“Other people are trying to lift.” 

“But what if it’s wrong?” 

“You’re _in the way_.”

“ _Steve_.”

“ _Bucky_.”

“ _Barnes_.” 

If there is one person who is seemingly immune to Fury’s intimidating aura, it’s Bucky. Constantly talking back, whining about programming, and generally being unwavering under the force of Fury’s glare, Bucky is perhaps the only person Steve’s ever heard call Fury “Nick” to his face without finding themselves on the receiving end of one of their coach’s glares.

Yet despite this immunity, Bucky jumps. Practically _scurries_ over to where Nick sits on one of the nicer folding chairs (nicer, in this sense, meaning that it has padding where the others do not). Steve makes a move to follow them, notices Dugan setting up at one of the adjacent platforms and thinks better of it. Better to wait than to get in anyone else’s way. Besides, he’s only got a few more sets of snatch pulls. 

The straps are difficult to get used to, the burden of holding tight to the bar relieved just enough to take some of the strain off his thumbs but not enough for him to feel like the 100 kg coming off the ground isn’t obscenely heavy. Like he’s not being made to lift it off the ground 3 times, as high as it can go.

“More leg drive, Rogers,” Fury calls.

Bucky wanders back over to his platform, puts 150 onto the bar and begins his clean pulls. After the second set, Steve reaches for his straps only to find them missing from his gym bag. 

“Did you take my straps?” 

“You gotta ask?” He already has the blue fabric wound around the bar, sets up, and executes 2 painfully difficult-looking pulls. He takes another moment to collect himself afterward before handing the straps back to Steve.

“You’re really sweaty.”

Steve scowls. “Says you.”

“Says _everyone_. Fuckin’ disgusting.” 

“Fuck you, get your own straps if you don’t wanna deal with my sweat.” 

Bucky pauses, looks like a comment is poised on the tip of his tongue, but thinks better of it and waves Steve off. “Too much work. I have shit t’do. Places t’go. People t’see—“ 

“Becca doesn’t count as ‘people t’see’.” 

“I’ll tell her you said that. _I’ll tell her_.”

Steve scoffs. “Like she’d believe anything coming out of your mouth.” He sets up to do another set and manages to complete his pulls with minimal commentary on Bucky’s part.

* * *

 

They’re packing up to go when Bucky gives Steve the news.

“Fury’s not coming with me. To Nationals.”

This decision is not unsurprising, but Steve makes a small noise of shock nonetheless. Fury has a gym to run, other athletes to train, and he’s fairly sure that Bucky’s been in charge of counting his own attempts on a number of occasions.

Still.

“’Cause of the Metropolitan Championships.”

Bucky toys with the strap on his gym bag. He tugs it as taut as it will go then loosens it until it practically drags on the floor, then repeats the whole process. Hums a little while he does it, like he’s trying to collect his thoughts.

Steve’s almost given up on the conversation when Bucky stops fumbling and speaks again. 

“It’s in Chicago.”

His expression turns quizzical, but he nods. “Yeah, Buck, it is.”

“I’m… I’m taking a bus out.”

Nodding seems to be the only appropriate response, so he does it, wondering where the conversation is going. If it’s going anywhere at all. Bucky has a tendency to begin thoughts he can’t finish, starts conversations just to leave them hanging there, incomplete. Maybe this is one of those.

“—about counting attempts ‘n I can do it but it’s a big place, yanno? And I figured ‘cause you’ve never been, maybe…” 

Steve’s still nodding, still not entirely following Bucky’s train of thought.

“You don’t have to, though! Just thought, ‘cause you’ll probably qualify for next year’s, you might wanna see…” 

Oh.

 _Oh_. 

Bucky’s staring at him now, hands still over the straps on his bag, like he’s waiting for Steve’s answer before he can move again. He’s watching Steve carefully, like Steve is something unfamiliar, a stranger that he _hasn’t_ fallen asleep face-first in a bowl of popcorn in front of. Like he’s—

“Yeah, Buck. Sure.”

The change is instantaneous and Steve finds himself thinking of sun breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm. Shakes the thoughts from his head because _why in the hell_. But Bucky’s grinning, no longer fiddling with his gym bag, looking like Steve’s just made his day, like his earlier lift, his 138 kg, doesn’t hold a candle to what Steve just agreed to.

“Great, ‘cause I have an extra ticket now, and we’re takin’ a bus out because flying’s too expensive—“ 

Which, Steve knows, is Bucky-speak for ‘I hate flying’. He doesn’t mention that Bucky’s already told him they’re taking a Greyhound. 

“— _really_ early ‘cause I wanna get a look at the facilities, and then as soon as it’s done we can head back or we can get a hotel, I’ve never been to _Chicago_ usually they have these in-in… _Utah_ or some shit can you believe it?” 

Steve absolutely _can_ believe it, has heard Bucky complain about it on more than one occasion. First the flying, because a Greyhound bus to Utah from New York seems like more trouble than it’s worth, then the location, and _then_ more about the flying. He doesn’t say that, though. Nods in sympathy as he shoulders his bag and leads the Bucky out of the gym, his friend still chattering excitedly.  
  


* * *

   
Walking into the Barnes household is a surreal experience.

Steve toes off his shoes at the door, careful to leave them on the welcome mat as opposed to the hardwood floor. Bucky forgoes this ritual, choosing instead to kick his shoes in whatever direction he sees fit, narrowly avoiding the walls. 

The walls, that Steve tries very hard not to look at for too long.

Pictures and memorabilia cover most open surfaces. Bucky in his first competition at 8 years old. Bucky, standing on the podium at Junior Nationals. Bucky in his Team USA singlet, competing at the American Open. Medals, the occasional trophy, pictures on pictures on pictures.

Even more disconcerting are the older photographs. A man straining under the weight of the bar as he receives the snatch. The same man bending down from the first place podium as an official gives him a medal at the World Weightlifting Championships somewhere in Europe. The same man shaking hands with some of the greatest weightlifters of all time. Receiving a large trophy. Standing on an empty platform. Once, Steve looked closely at the scoreboard in the background, only to find the meaning of the words lost on him. They’re in Cyrillic.

There are pictures that are older still. A man in the 50s, the 40s and beyond, holding comically large dumbbells above his head with one arm. The Barnes household, to Steve, feels less like a home than a museum.

Bucky catches Steve staring at the walls and makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. “C’mon, Steve, they’re not that interesting.”

Steve disagrees. These pictures are Bucky’s past, his upbringing, everything that culminated in the creation of the person standing in front of him. He looks a bit longer, at a picture of the man—Aleksander Lukin, he knows—off to the side of the platform at Bucky’s first competition. He looks older, a little softer, but that focus is still there. That ferocity is still there, waiting to be imparted to his stepson. 

Bucky’s down the hall now, but glances back over his shoulder to see that Steve is still standing in the doorway, still looking at the pictures.

“ _Steve_ I gotta pack.” 

“And you need me for this _why_?”

There’s a pause during which Bucky seems to be searching for an answer but is drawing blank after blank after blank. “Because I want—I—“

“ _You_ …?”

“I—“ He shrugs a little violently, turns to begin the packing that he saved until the day before they’re scheduled to leave.

By the time Steve enters Bucky’s room, having thoroughly inspected every photograph, the latter has already shoved all his things into one overflowing gym back. Steve nudges it with his foot and gives a low whistle.

“Sure you packed enough?”

“No thanks t’you,” Bucky grumbles, shoving what looks like a protein bar into the side of his bag. Steve doesn’t react to the comment, knows Bucky’s bad mood comes from cutting weight over the last few weeks.

“You bring your shit?”

“Nah,” Steve says as he dumps his own bag onto Bucky’s clothes-covered bed. “I left it at home.”

Bucky gives him a look somewhere between fond and exasperated only moments before he throws a sandwich bag of white powder at Steve's face. Steve catches it, gives the bag a little shake. 

“We taking drugs on the bus now?”

“Ha ha, asshole. When do drugs ever smell like watermelons.”

Steve opens the bag and takes a sniff. It does, indeed, smell strongly of watermelon.

“It’s pre-workout.”

He doesn’t understand the point of pre-workout, but pretends to be interested for the sake of not getting anything else thrown at his head. “It sure is.” 

Bucky mumbles something that sounds like “smartass” under his breath as he digs through a pile of what appear to be singlets spread out on his bed. “Do I take the USA one, the Adidas, or the… the other… Adidas?” 

“Christ.”  
 

* * *

  
‘Really early’ is an understatement in a lot of ways and Steve isn’t entirely sure he’ll ever forgive Bucky for the fact that he’s vertical at 3 AM, squinting at the neon display of bus departure times. Bucky, for all that he shoved Steve out the door and onto the subway in the wee hours of the morning, appears to be asleep with his eyes open. He keeps listing dangerously to the side, his bag assisting in his imminent collapse. 

“Buck.” 

“Hmmmmmm.”

“Which bus.”

Bucky blinks blearily up at the display, moves until he’s craning his neck up to read the text. He spends entirely too long staring at the words on the board before he points. “That one.” 

They board the bus without any additional problems, Bucky bemoaning his lack of caffeine (“ _I gotta save it all for the meet, Steve, I hate myself right now—_ “) and Steve trying very hard to waft the scent of his double shot in the dark in Bucky’s general direction.

“Steve I swear to god if you don’t cut it out—“

“What, Buck? I’m just enjoying my coffee. My sweet coffee.” He takes an exaggerated sip, lets out a sigh that’s almost _too_ content and Bucky looks like he wants to scream.

“I will _kick you off this fucking bus_.” 

“You and what army?”

Bucky looks around, notes the general lack of other passengers. His frown deepens. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

The closer they get to Chicago, the quieter Bucky gets. He alternates between taking short naps and staring pensively out the window. Steve feels a growing pressure on his arm the longer they sit where he leans against him. At one point he gets up to use the restroom and Steve is surprised by the fact that he misses the presence.

They're still a few hours out when Bucky starts to fidget. At first it’s just his foot tapping a rhythmless beat on the floor, but soon enough he’s squirming in his seat, shoving occasionally into Steve only to apologize under his breath, like he’s afraid of someone hearing him. He shoves his earbuds in his ears, listens to his music so loud that Steve considers making a joke about hearing his music from across the aisle but one look at Bucky’s expression shuts him up.

Steve has seen Bucky look a lot of different ways. He’s seen him pensive, following comments from Fury moments before he takes a lift. He’s seen him angry, when he misses, when someone walks in front of his platform, when someone gives Steve shit and Steve is out of earshot. He’s seen him exhausted, confident, a smug piece of shit, embarrassed, but he’s never seen Bucky _nervous_. If that’s what this is. 

It’s disconcerting, a little like seeing all the pictures on the walls of Bucky’s house. Different iterations that he’s never seen before. Steve isn’t sure how to proceed, but if he leans a little more into Bucky the closer they get to Chicago, if he talks too much to keep Bucky’s mind off the upcoming competition, Bucky doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he leans right back.

* * *

 They arrive in Chicago 3 hours before Bucky is set to lift and only a handful of minutes before he’s scheduled to weigh in. They hurry into the convention center, Steve carrying both bags and Bucky guzzling a grande coffee from the closest Starbucks. Black. No sugar. “I gotta make weight, Steve,” he says, sounding a little desperate. A little tired.

They make it just in time for Bucky to stand in the short line that makes up the 69 kg A session. Steve stands off to the side while Bucky receives his card in exchange for his USAW number, gives his opening attempts (85, 115). Tries hard to rub the tiredness from his eyes while he waits to weigh in and beyond that, the opportunity to eat whatever he can shove in his mouth the fastest. 

Bucky goes into the room. Steve watches the other competitors, imagines himself standing in a line like that some day. He’s close, only a few kilos and a decent competition away, but standing in the convention center with people who are past ‘close’, who are actually _there_ makes him feel like he has a long way to go.

When Bucky comes out he’s tugging his t-shirt back over his head. Immediately his eyes meet Steve’s and some of the tension bleeds out of him. Steve feels himself relax. Bucky made it. He’s in.

Bucky doesn’t slow down as he nears Steve, choosing instead to grab Steve’s arm and jerk him around in the opposite direction. “C’mon we’re gonna get a fuckin’ pizza or something. Three pizzas. Steve, we’re gonna get _seven pizzas_.”

“We can’t get seven pizzas, you lift in like 2 hours.” 

“Seven pizzas, Steve.”

Steve carefully steers Bucky back in the direction of the warm-up room. Bucky scowls at him the whole time, but Steve remains unfazed.

“You have food in your bag.”

“ _Pizzas_ , Steven.”

“Lifting _,_ _James_.”

Bucky shoves him, causing Steve to swerve in a desperate attempt to avoid an oncoming group of people. “That’s low.”

“I never said I played fair.”

“ _I never said I played fair_ you’re the _embodiment_ of fair, you lying piece of shit. You called me out when I cheated at Uno, you—“

“That was _one time_ —“ 

“ _What did I tell you_.”

Their bickering dies down when they enter the warm-up room and all of Bucky’s earlier tension returns tenfold. He moves like he’s on autopilot, heading over to the furthest platform in the back with a grim expression on his face. If he steps in front of other lifters, if he interrupts a couple warm-up sets, he doesn’t seem to notice. Steve shoots the lifters in question apologetic looks as he follows his friend. 

There’s a bar on the platform, shiny and new. Bucky eyes it like it’s likely to bite him, chooses instead to start his warm-ups with a PVC pipe. Steve sets their bags down behind the platform and sits down to watch. He’s halfway through watching a 63 kg women’s lifter when he hears the clatter of PVC on wood, turns just in time to see Bucky moving swiftly through the warm-up area, take a sharp left, and vanish from sight. 

After a few moments, when he’s absolutely certain he’s not going to be walking in front of anyone, Steve gets up and hurries after him. Sets Bucky’s shoes on the platform to claim their place.

When he finds him, he’s on his knees in front of the toilet. Steve takes a moment to thank whatever higher power there is for the fact that Bucky isn’t throwing up, and then he moves in to tap his friend lightly on the shoulder. 

“You need anything?” 

Bucky shakes his head, leans his against the porcelain only to pull away a moment later as he dry-heaves. Steve moves to rub his back in what he hopes are comforting circles, only to have Bucky shake him off moments later.

“I’m good, I’m—“ he dry heaves again, leans over the toilet and spits. “I’m _fine_ I’m good.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, settles in against the stall and crosses his arms. Makes sure he ramps the vocal sarcasm up to 11. “Yeah, you’re _good_.”

“I’m good.” 

“Uh-huh.”

Bucky spits into the toilet again, rests his forehead against the toilet seat and makes a face. “Yeah.”

“Right.”

“The best ever.” It’s punctuated by another round of dry heaving so violent that Steve’s almost certain he’s going to bring something up, but nothing happens. Bucky sags back against the stall, looks up at Steve.

“You’re good.”

Bucky’s eyes are glassy, his face a little wet. He nods.

“You don’t _look_ good.”

“Look better’n you.” It’s a weak comeback, a clear ‘ _leave it_ ’ that Steve is tempted to ignore, but Bucky’s already pulling himself up, already moving toward the sink to wash his face. “Move your ass, Rogers, we’re gonna lose our platform.”

Despite Bucky's nerves, the snatch portion of the competition goes off without a hitch. 100 kg goes up easily, Steve screaming nonsense off to the side as Bucky battles for a moment in the bottom of the snatch, rocks forward almost onto his toes only to force himself back down moments later. When he drops the bar, it’s to thunderous applause. Bucky pumps his fist, grits his teeth in an approximation of a smile as he practically jumps off the stage.

The clean and jerk is where it starts to fall apart. Where it _always_ starts to fall apart. Bucky misses his first clean, an easy 115 that sends him sprawling back onto the platform.

“Wanna take it again?”

Bucky looks straight through him, eyes on the board where the 3 red lights are still visible. 

“Buck.” Steve gives his shoulder a light shake, notes the fast-approaching end to the 30-second window.

“130.” It sounds like it’s being squeezed out of him, like someone’s ripped the words from his throat.

“Are you—“

“130.”

Steve sprints to the table, writes in the next attempt on the card and hopes that Bucky hasn’t just doomed himself.

The next attempt is less disastrous. An easy clean, a quick dip, a strong drive, and—

The buzzer sounds after the bar hits the platform. Bucky’s expression is blank, his hands tapping at random intervals against his thighs. His fingers flick, one, two, and then his eyes fix on Steve.

“I want 140.”

The number takes a moment to register with him. 

“140.”

“One. Forty.”

Steve gives him an incredulous look, but Bucky’s already heading to the chairs by the platform. He turns away, heads to the table. Contemplates the possible outcomes of waiting out the clock. Of making Bucky take 130 again.

Bucky would never forgive him.

When he gives Bucky’s final attempt, the pen tears through the cardstock.

It takes 5 more lifters bombing out before Bucky’s name comes up again. Bucky spends that time with his head resting on his knees, breaths coming slow.

Steve rests his hand lightly on Bucky’s back. He doesn’t shake it off this time. 

When they call his name, Bucky tightens his belt and approaches the platform with a quiet ferocity that Steve has never seen from him before. Has seen only in the photos of Aleksander Lukin in Bucky’s house. He stands, quiet in the face of the audience’s cheers, their encouragement. One quick motion with his hands and the room falls silent.

He approaches the bar with careful, calculated movements. Every step taking no more energy than absolutely necessary. 

Sets up. Flicks his fingers. One. Two. Three. Pulls.

The movement is vicious. It’s brutal and it’s angry and Steve is twelve-years-old again, watching that boy on the platform next to him. A cross between Dimas and something else entirely.

Bucky stands, catches his breath. Jerks his head once. Twice. A ragged inhale that sounds like it’s just barely filling his lungs and then.

He dips.

There is a wild moment where the bar oscillates around him, almost seems to bend over his shoulders as he moves down.

The drive up is just as violent as the clean, all the frustrations of the earlier attempts put into one motion. Steve hears Bucky’s feet hit the platform with a _crack_ , sees his arms shaking to support the weight 2 kg heavier than anything he’s ever put above his head.

And it sticks.

Steve holds his breath as Bucky recovers, no longer a careful _one-two_ but a staggered attempt to keep the bar locked overhead. When he regains his balance he stands, expression unreadable even as he quakes with the effort of holding everything still.

“ _DOWN._ ”

All the noise rushes back into the room at once. Bucky drops the bar to the platform as the crowd roars its approval, as Steve excitedly slaps the arm of the alarmed-looking official in charge of allowing athletes onto the platform.

“He did it! He did—did you see? Did you! Holy shit, oh fuck, oh my god—“ 

“Please stop hitting me.”

“Holy shit holy shit holy—“

Bucky’s halfway off the platform when Steve meets him, pulling him off the ground and staggering down the stairs. Bucky’s dead weight in his arms, but Steve’s got enough excitement for the both of them. 

“Holy shit, Buck. Oh my god, with the—with the—and the—the everything! Buck that was incredible!” 

“Steve.”

“You _asshole_!” 

“Steven.”

“You smooth motherfucker, I bet you fucking planned this I cannot _believe_ you, I—“

Something jabs hard into his side and he bites down on a yelp that escapes despite his best efforts. He loosens his grip and Bucky wriggles away, staggers a bit either for comedic effect or because his legs are shot, Steve isn’t sure.

“Lemme _breathe_ , okay? Jesus Christ…” 

“ _Holy shit, Buck_.”

But Bucky’s grinning, a satisfied little smile that grows with every passing second until he’s beaming. He doesn’t even bother to step away as Steve, accepting that he can no longer spin his friend around in the manner to which he is accustomed, settles for punching him lightly on the shoulder.  
  
One awards ceremony and several pizzas later (“ _Listen, if I’m gonna sit on a bus for 18 hours I’m gonna shove at least eight pizzas into my face.” “That’s a terrible idea, please don’t do this why are you always like this._ ”) they board the Greyhound back home. Bucky once again looks like he’s fallen asleep with his eyes open while Steve tries valiantly to carry both of their bags.

“What kinda rocks did you put in here?”

Steve’s not totally sure, but he thinks Bucky says “protein bars” around a monstrous yawn.

“Protein bars.”

Bucky merely yawns again in response. 

They’re not even out of Chicago before Bucky falls asleep, his head on Steve’s shoulder, smooth bronze gradually warming between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a wise person once said that life is actually just a constant stream of thought about bucky barnes, and this is proof of that, i think.
> 
> \- people use [straps](http://www.roguefitness.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/o/l/olympic-strap-web2.jpg) on pulls and sometimes on the snatch to (kind of) save their hands. you still have to hook grip but it takes some of the strain off. they're also fabric, so they get really gross really fast.  
> \- The Metropolitan Championships are real and they are at LBH.  
> \- [These](https://www.strengthshopusa.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1200x/040ec09b1e35df139433887a97daa66f/5/3/53kg_cb.jpg) are the comically-large dumbbells. The circus dumbbell press used to be part of olympic weightlifting, back when no one was sure what weightlifting should consist of, but now it's part of strongman.  
> \- Bucky's mom didn't take Lukin's last name when they married and Bucky followed suit.  
> \- pre-workout supplements are generally used to increase energy and endurance during workouts. I don't take them but I know a lot of folks who do and sometimes they smell like fruit (the supplements, not the people).  
> \- some people cut down on caffeine prior to a meet because they'll get a ton of caffeine _at_ the meet and they feel like it makes them do better. I personally would love to do this, and yet.  
>  \- Bucky and Steve's Greyhound adventures are partially inspired by a friend of mine who took a Greyhound to the American Open (or was it the Arnold?)  
> \- 138 kg is ~300 lbs, but everyone always aims for 140 because it sounds cooler.  
> \- I feel like [this](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0548/3865/products/Eleiko_BlueSuedeBelt_Full.jpg?v=1419888073) is the weightlifting belt that Bucky uses. Not everyone uses belts, but it comes in handy with heavier lifts because it helps maintain core stability. Belts are allowed in competition, but only certain types of belts.  
> \- In competition you have only 30 seconds to change/call your next attempt, otherwise you get an automatic 1 kg increase or, in the case of missing a lift, you have to take the weight again. This is why having someone run for you to keep track of attempts is really helpful, so you're not tiring yourself out going to and from the table.  
> \- Bucky is like, the embodiment of pre-competition jitters.  
> \- 2009 Nationals did in fact take place in Chicago. Sorry @ the dude who took 3rd IRL, I kicked you out of the spot in order for Bucky to Have A Good Meet.


	11. ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Academics (but not)

_Factors that led to the fall of the Soviet Union_.

_Factors that led to the fall of the_

_Factors that_  

_Factors_

The text vanishes from his line of sight for a moment as Bucky decides to put the notecard to better use, scratching the tip of his nose. Steve blinks several times, rubs at his eyes as he blearily searches for the missing card. As he tries to remember the question. Tries to keep his eyes from closing of their own accord. Blinking is overrated, after all. 

“Gimme the card.”

Bucky frowns at him from his position on the bed, hanging upside-down with his face beginning to look more beet-like with every passing moment. Rather than acquiescing to Steve’s wishes, he scratches his nose again.

He hopes his glare has enough disapproval behind it. Moments later, the monstrous yawn that rips itself from his throat is enough to indicate that he’s well beyond ‘missing the mark’. Bucky’s slow, shit-eating grin doesn’t help matters, and Steve is content to pretend like he missed it during his “extended blink”.

“Can you even _see_ right now?”

Steve tries his glare again. Still unsuccessful, not any less disappointing.

“You’re gonna give yourself a—a thing,” Steve says around a yawn, moving his hand slowly through the air as he tries to recall just what _thing_ Bucky’s going to give himself. His thoughts are slow, floating in and out with very few pausing long enough to catch his attention. He tries to remember what was on the card, but all he gets is a white rectangle.

He’s staring.

“You’re staring,” Bucky points out, his face still an alarming purple-red.

He bites back a yawn. “You look like a blueberry, I have every right—“ 

“Bull _shit_.”

Steve merely turns onto his back, rolls his hips to the side in such a way that his back gives a loud _pop_. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Bucky’s grimace.

“C’mon don’t do that—“

He rolls his hips to the other side, another audible _pop_.

“Not in my goddamn _room_ , Steve, not in my actual _house_!”

Steve kicks himself back into a sitting position, raises his arms above his head as if in warning. Bucky looks distressed.

“Steve I have _invited you into my home_ —“ 

Hands clasped, Steve stretches, feels all the muscles in his back and shoulders tense at once. He settles into the position for a moment, before slowly lowing his arms again, gradually moving back to shoulder-height.

_Pop_

_Pop_

“You _motherfucker_. See if I give you this fuckin’ notecard back.” 

Momentarily satisfied, Steve collapses back onto the floor. He shoots Bucky his best shit-eating grin. “Have some pity, read it to me.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, but gives in. “ _Factors that led to the fall of the Soviet Union_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Doubles were a bad idea.

 _Coming to train_ was a bad idea.

Steve wraps his hand around the bar, digs the metal in between his thumb and forefinger. He looks up, eyes focused on the picture across the room. Takes a deep breath, then sets up.

It’s like pulling cement off the floor, the way it drags up his legs, catches on the material of his basketball shorts. When he drives with his hips, forces his elbows back, it feels slow, heavy and clumsy in a way that his snatches rarely feel.

The lockout feels like a miracle.

The gradual glide of the bar as it continues on over his head feels less like a miracle, more like punishment. His shoulders protest the shift, unlocking only to allow the bar to continue its path.

Steve feels his knees hit the platform before anything else. Feels the wood against his skin, a dull burn that somehow manages to overpower everything else. He sits for a moment in the place where he fell. 

That old, familiar fire burns in his stomach, but it’s a dull feeling. Fewer flames and more glowing coals, smoldering without any sign of getting bigger. Distantly, he thinks he should get up, but movement seems impossible. His body feels heavy, heavier than the bar and the 70 kilos on it.

Nobody calls him off the platform. The gym is empty in the early afternoon, Fury having retired into the depths of his office and everyone else buried deep in final exams.

Steve is no exception to that, of course. His notecards are buried deep in his gym bag, corners dog-eared and pencil wearing away with how often he’s thumbed through them. Facts upon facts upon facts, reviewed so many times he sees them when he closes his eyes. 

He abandons his snatches in favor of pulls, dragging another 15 kilos over to shove onto his bar. Dragging it off the platform takes years, and it’s another decade before it gets high enough for him to pull his elbows up and back, to complete the pull itself. The second rep is just as difficult, another hundred years off his life.

And the notecards are still sitting in his bag.

In-between sets finds Steve digging through his bag. One minute passes. Two minutes. He’s thumbing through policies, through vocabulary terms, and important events. Three minutes finds him slogging through another set of doubles, another seventy years off his life. 

There’s no music playing, no one talking. Just him.

After pulls come squats. They aren’t his usual swift, dynamic repetitions. 100 drags him to the bottom, and it’s a monumental effort to get up again. At the top, he drags in a breath, waits for his head to clear before he carries out his second rep. It goes just as smoothly as the first, his legs protesting every step of the way.

Sets of 4 become triples become doubles. Doubles become singles, and Steve is thumbing through his notecards with the desperation of someone who hasn’t dedicated nearly enough time to their books. The more he looks at the cards, the more it feels like he’s never seen the words in his life. The more anxious he gets.

He struggles his way through 2 more sets before he gives up. His eyelids are heavy and the notecards—his _last final_ —weighs on his mind in a way no other final has.

If given a choice between the stress of college applications and the wait before a final exam, Steve thinks he would undoubtedly choose the former. At least with applications he has a little more control. 

Leaving the gym is like surrender, but it’s a surrender he’s willing to make. As he tears through his notecards on the subway home, he tries not to reflect on the misses. Focuses instead on the weight of the cards in his hand, the graphite that rubs off onto his skin.

 

* * *

 

 

Agreeing to a competition the weekend after final exams was not Steve’s greatest decision.

He stands on the platform, a light 77. His singlet feels strange, tight around his quads and loose around his midsection, a little uncomfortable. A little like wearing a potato sack. Despite the amount of coffee Clint shoved into his hands in the warm-up room, his eyes burn. When he rubs them he’s surprised sand doesn’t come away on his palms. 

The buzzer sounds.

Steve approaches the bar, shoulders back, eyes forward. The doors to the gym sit at the back of the room and he focuses on the reflection, the smooth handles, the way they open and close. There’s 100 kg on the bar, but the only thing he’s thinking of are the two glass doors.

Seconds tick down and he’s wrapping his hands around the bar. Thumb first, metal digging into the juncture between his thumb and pointer finger. The bite of the knurling on his legs when he lifts off, sending little warning bells off in his head. _Blood on the bar, blood on the bar_.

The bar doesn’t flip so much as it floats and Steve flips around it. One moment he’s pushing with his legs with all his body can manage, and the next he’s watching the metal spin past his eyes, feeling the brush of the bar on the tips of his hair.

Locking out doesn’t feel like a miracle. It feels right, it feels _strong_ in a way Steve hasn’t felt in months. He doesn’t waver, doesn’t shake as he calmly stands only to let the bar drop to the platform moments later. The down signal. Three white lights. Distantly, he wishes Bucky were here. Wishes he could see, but he settles for the weight of Fury’s hand on his back, Clint’s excited chattering as he gives Steve a play-by-play account of his own lift. 

“And then you just _ripped it off the floor_ I swear t’god—“

He sits heavily in the folding chair behind their reserved platform, reaches into his bag for a protein bar only to extract a familiar-looking bag. One look at the sandwich within tells him everything, even if he sniffs it just in case. Peanut butter and chocolate, nutella to be exact, cut in triangles.

When he turns the bag over, he sees a familiar scrawl, all-caps. 

 _HERE COMES THE PLANE_. 

Caught between laughing and crying, Steve acknowledges the surge in emotions by shoving one whole sandwich triangle into his mouth. It tastes terrible, too sweet for his tastes and a bizarre flavor combination that he’s not a fan of. He plans on telling Bucky as much ( _knows_ that Bucky knows, in fact), but for the moment he contents himself with chewing and nodding along to Clint’s stories, mentally preparing himself for the lifts to come.

When they call him onto the platform to take 125, he moves with a confidence he doesn’t feel. His movements feel automated, the quick _one-two_ of his feet onto the platform, the slap of his hands on his thighs as he stands behind the bar, the ragged breath he takes before the bar leaves the floor. He’s on autopilot into the clean, a dynamic power clean that has the audience murmuring excitedly.

He chooses that moment to come back into himself, bar resting across his shoulders, heart hammering in his chest. Several short, almost frantic breaths later, and he’s ready. Takes the dip, and splits.

As far as jerk recoveries go, it’s not graceful. It’s not the controlled recovery of the gym, it’s not even Bucky’s staggered recovery at Nationals. Steve’s recovery is a race to the edge of the platform; an anxious teetering that nearly sends the bar into the judges’ table. Someone’s yelling something, but it doesn’t sound like words. Doesn’t sound like sounds. Something like an approximation of the two. It’s not until he’s stopped moving, toes nearly hanging off the edge, that he realizes it’s him.

The time between the completion of the lift and the down signal stretches in front of him. His arms start to quake, a small tremor evolving into full, visible shaking. It’s not until he opens his mouth to tell the center judge to _make the call_ that he hears the buzzer.

“ _Steve will be credited with a 125 kilo clean and jerk, and a 225 total._ ”

He’s walking off the platform when it hits him, and when it does, he sits down hard on the steps.

A 225 total.

He’s going to Nationals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is so short yikes.
> 
> \-- for a sport that's as mental as weightlifting, things that demand a lot of mental energy can really mess with your lifts.  
> \-- Steve's weird back/shoulder popping is maybe loosely based on my own tendency to pop my shoulders/back on the regular. I mean, sometimes it happens on its own, but the really important thing is that I don't _use it to annoy people_.  
>  \-- in the sport of weightlifting you have to keep the bar on the platform, meaning _you_ as a lifter can't step off the platform. That's an automatic "no lift".  
>  \-- Where did Bucky go???? jk I'll cover that next chapter.  
> \-- I actually don't know what the 77 kg qualifying total is so I had to look at the 2010 nationals list to get a very vague idea.
> 
> I hope everyone's had a chance to watch the weightlifting parts of the Olympics! I'm so stoked about how things have gone so far, I'm especially happy for Sara Ahmed! She's so young, and she's only been lifting for 7 years I'm so amazed. I've also cried maybe 5 times watching these sessions. I'm just saying.
> 
> Sorry about the lack of updates, once school is over and I'm done sleeping forever I'll update on a regular schedule again.


	12. eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky comes back.

Steve Rogers has a lot of problems, but his eyesight isn't one of them (yet). Still, there are moments in the wee hours of the morning when he has to wonder. As he rubs the sleep from his eyes he stares at the glowing screen, thumbs aside the lock and keys in his password to get a better look.

It makes just as much sense with the phone unlocked as it did when the text message tone first went off (giving him a heart attack, but he’s not the type to hold a grudge). He brings the device closer to his face, as if having the screen mere inches from his nose will make the message more intelligible. Eventually, he admits to himself that all he’s succeeded in doing is realizing how cracked and scratched his phone screen really is. That the device is still working is a miracle in and of itself.

Steve tosses the phone onto his bed and collapses back onto his mattress, the message undeciphered. Analyzing text messages is much more of a Daytime Steve task, and he feels no guilt leaving the job to a much more awake and alert version of himself.

Just as he feels himself drifting off, the phone vibrates. Jerking out of the warm fugue state between waking and sleeping, he scrambles for the device. It continues to vibrate, a harbinger of ascending and descending notes that would be considered “soothing” at any time that was not 3:15 AM. Especially on a weekday.

His fingers brush the surface just in time for the text tone to start sounding. Steve takes a moment to reflect on the simplicity of life pre-text message. His mourning period over, he unlocks his phone to look at yet another message from the same sender. The same sender who, apparently, does not understand how time works.

 _Beep beep, asshole_.

_Steve. >:(_

Just as he begins to type a response—provided he can formulate a response—his phone vibrates again, the text message tone quick to follow. 

 _I kno ur up_  

Something at the back of Steve’s mind _ding_ s, just enough for him to pause before sending the string of borderline incoherent “fuck you”s that make up his response. Just as another blinking elipses appears on the screen, Steve types up something that he hopes is a little more coherent but still manages to convey his displeasure at being woken up at Literally Nobody’s Favorite Time. 

_wtrfff when did u get t in_

He feels the weight of Bucky’s smirk from here, and it physically pains him.

_right now_

another minute passes. Steve shifts to a more comfortable position, although he’s not sure if ‘comfortable’ is entirely possible given his training as of late. It’s volume on volume on volume, and he’s never been so exhausted in his life. His legs are a separate entity and they’re screaming.

The phone vibrates.

_surprised u weren’t there to meet me @ the gate_

Steve stares at the letters until they’re wavering in front of his eyes. It’s too early for this, for him to decide whether it’s worth reading into what he’s sure is a joke. 

 _srry_ , he types, his eyelids fluttering closed of their own accord. He contents himself with typing the rest of his message with his eyes shut, hits “send” only to re-read his masterpiece a moment later.

_ididht thikf u ert gtig 4 coer min sppac_

He’s just managed to convince himself that the entire experience is a terrible excuse for a bad dream when Bucky shoots back a quick response.

_wtf_

_w t f_

There’s no saving face this time. Steve holds back a yawn, tries to shake himself awake a little bit more to create something a little more coherent than his previous text. It’s not very effective. 

_sleep how was rus_

If Steve didn’t know any better, he would think that Bucky had nothing better to do than to text him. The messages come in a rapid succession, each more confusing than the last.

_????????_

_go 2 sleep u fuck_

_why r u even awake_

_it’s so early_

_go to sleep_

_russia was ok i never want to squat again evr_

_go to sleep_

_stop texting me_

_steve_

_r u asleep_

Steve contemplates just putting his phone away, but what would be the fun in that.

_ya_

The ellipses flashes onto the screen for far too long. He drifts off again, hoping that Bucky will get the hint and leave him alone. 3 AM is not the time for conversation.

Unfortunately, any pragmatic skills that Bucky developed over the years appear to have vanished on his trip. Steve’s phone buzzes again, startling him enough that he drops the still-vibrating device. He’s not sure what hurts more: his face or his pride.

He lifts the phone, expecting a paragraph for how long Bucky took to type. Perhaps a story detailing his adventures abroad, maybe some long-kept Russian weightlifting secret. Maybe— 

_fuck u smartass fck_

Steve sets his phone gingerly onto the floor by his bed.

Sounds about right.

 

* * *

 

 

Possibly more surprising than the number of people at Fury Barbell Club early on a Saturday morning is the fact that Bucky is standing on his platform with an empty bar in his hands. He looks a little worse for wear; dark circles under his eyes, that aura of shakiness that comes with going too long without sleep, but he moves fluidly none-the-less.

Bucky pauses mid-warm up, catches Steve looking in his direction and smiles. It’s tired, a little dim, but it’s _Bucky_. 

Rather than holding an emotional reunion on the platform, Steve slaps him on the back as he walks by, cackles a little when the other stumbles. Serves him right for texting him at 3 in the goddamn morning.

He carefully winds his way around stretching weightlifters, aiming for a free spot on the wall. When he reaches it, he begins to unpack his things. First out of the bag are his knee sleeves, which he lifts out gingerly and gives a cautious sniff before placing them on the ground. His shoes are next, placed next to his knee sleeves while he searches his bag for the pre-workout that he could have _sworn_ he put into his bag when he woke up.

One thorough search of his bag and two minutes moping later, he comes to terms with the fact that he will, in fact, have to rely on his own energy levels to get himself through the workout. A not-so-casual glance in the direction of the board tells him that today was _not_ the day to forgo any additional boosts, knows that by the time he gets to 6x6 back squats he’s going to be kicking himself. If he’s not doing it halfway through the 5x3 hang snatches.

Knowing there’s no sense in delaying the inevitable, Steve slips on his shoes. They’re scuffed, the bottoms beginning to peel off at the toe, but they’re _his_ and they’re sturdy. Besides, with shoes running over $150 he can’t afford to be choosy. 

Steve moves slowly through his warm-ups, noting the tightness of his muscles, the way his joints pop and crack (much to Bucky’s disgust). His hips refuse to loosen up, protesting his every attempt until he’s two seconds and one more failed stretch away from performing an entire yoga routine.

Fury, apparently, agrees.

“This isn’t a yoga studio, Rogers, get your ass on a platform.” 

Noting the absence of open platforms, Steve sidles over to Bucky’s platform, decides to forgo his sense of wellbeing and step on just as he drops down into a snatch balance, stretches in a way that shouldn’t be possible with such a narrow grip. Steve’s momentarily disgusted at his friend’s flexibility but overcomes it in time to nudge Bucky with the toe of his shoe.

“Need a spot?”

To his disappointment, Bucky doesn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he twists the bar overhead, a bizarre series of hand movements until Steve has to step back to avoid the bar hitting him in the face. 

“Yeah, you wanna gimme a lift-off, too?” Bucky deadpans.

He jokingly puts his hands under the free edges of the bar. “All you, bro.”

Bucky stands so quickly that Steve has to stagger back to avoid getting hit again. He drops the bar to the platform and whirls around to face him. For a moment his expression is lost, a little vacant. It’s fleeting, though, because the next second he’s slapping Steve on the shoulder with equal force to the slap Steve gave him.

“Thanks, _bro_.”

Without asking to work in, Steve grabs the empty bar from the platform and moves through his usual progression. Despite the twinges in his hips, his snatches feel crisp and smooth. As he slips a pair of green plates onto the bar he sends up a quick prayer to the gods of weightlifting that the pattern continues as the weights go up.

80% for triples.

He sends up a second prayer, just in case.

They move through the workout with minimal talking, their exchanges limited to the occasional muttered “ _nice_ ”. Between sets they take turns using the one folding chair behind the platform, Steve glancing in Bucky’s direction every few moments and Bucky’s eyes fixed on the bar. 

He’s keeping it light today, clean triples with the weight that Steve’s snatching. Each lift is mechanical, smooth and virtually the same as the lift that came before it. Steve glances over at the whiteboard, expecting to see a second program, but all he sees is the workout that Fury gave him.

It’s Bucky’s turn to sit in the folding chair, when Steve breaks the silence.

“How was Russia?”

Bucky glances up at him, like he forgot Steve was standing there. This close, Steve notices the little details. The red spot on his bottom lip from biting it too much, the way his fingers twitch against the fabric of his basketball shorts. He waits for Bucky’s answers, drinking in the minute changes. 

But Bucky doesn’t respond, choosing instead to stand up and approach the bar for his next set. His movement off the floor is explosive, but it’s not _Bucky_. There’s aggression but it’s controlled, contained instead of bursting out like it did at Nationals. This isn’t his 140 kg clean and jerk; this isn’t his 100 kg snatch.

He sets up for his next rep, begins again. Doesn’t throw his head back. 

When he steps off the platform he’s wiping his face on the edge of his t-shirt.

“Wanna hang out? Y’know… later?”

That surprised look is back, like Bucky half expected Steve to leave in the time it took him to complete his set. Steve finds himself missing the Bucky that never shut up, the Bucky that asked _him_ if he wanted to hang out, not the other way around. It’s too many changes too fast, too unexpectedly, and it’s making his stomach hurt.

There’s a moment where Steve convinces himself that Bucky’s going to decline. That he’s busy, he’s formed a new life for himself in the time he was abroad. It’s a silly thought, but a silly thought that Steve uses to steel himself against Bucky’s inevitable rejection. 

“Sure.”

It’s soft, hesitant. Steve grins none-the-less.

Steve’s finishing up his squats when Bucky wanders over the platform. His hair is sticking up in every direction and he’s changed clothes. Each step is accompanied by the _slap slap slap_ of his cheap, black flip-flops.

“I gotta talk to Nick,” he says. The fidgeting is back; his fingers toy with the frayed edge of his faded Hookgrip t-shirt. He doesn’t look Steve in the eye. “Lemme know when you’re ready.” 

“Sure, Buck. Just a couple more sets.” 

Steve finishes his sets in a daze. His thoughts are far away, his body relying entirely on muscle memory to help him stay dynamic, to keep him from buckling under the weight. When he’s done his legs feel like two massive lead balloons.

His cool down process is slow. He takes care to roll out his quads and calves. Endures the lacrosse ball digging into the muscles in his shoulder and hip. Every few minutes he glances in Bucky’s direction. His back is turned toward Steve, but even from across the gym Steve can see the slump to his shoulders, his arms crossed over his chest. Fury’s speaking seriously to him, there’s none of their usual banter. 

When he comes over, Bucky stops talking.

 

* * *

 

 

“I made it to Nationals.”

They’re sitting on a bench in Prospect Park, a bag of cheap, day old pastries between them. Steve is taking regular bites of his chocolate croissant, while Bucky picks idly at a chocolate scone. 

He waits.

Bucky breaks off a piece of scone. He inspects it, bringing it closer to his face as if to inspect the chunk for any imperfections. When he deems it ‘good enough’ he pops the piece into his mouth. Little crumbs stick to his lips. Another, larger piece finds its way to his mouth. More crumbs on his fingertips that he licks off afterward.

Maybe he didn’t hear, maybe he didn’t—

“I qualified,” Steve says, a little louder this time. “For Nationals.”

There’s a birthday party going on a little ways away. Children running around with comically large bubble wands, dipping them into plastic tubs of soapy water. Steve watches the trail of bubbles that follow their movements, trailing from the end of the bubble wands like little tails.

Bucky has to have heard him this time. He doesn’t know if he can say it again.

“That’s great.” He’s looking down at his scone, picking little pieces of dried cherry out of the chocolate and popping them into his mouth one by one. Melted chocolate sticks to his fingers.

Steve returns his gaze to the bubbles. There’s a high-pitched whistling in his ears.

“It’s in Illinois.”

Bucky inclines his head in a small nod, puts another piece of scone into his mouth.

The whistle grows a little louder. A little more insistent. His heart feel like it’s climbing into his throat.

“I was wondering—“

The rustle of paper meets Steve’s ears before he registers Bucky standing up, shouldering his gym bag. The half-eaten chocolate scone sits discarded on top of the pastry bag. Inside, there is a lemon poppy seed scone, a blueberry muffin, and a questionable piece of chocolate zucchini bread.

Steve stares at Bucky.

Bucky looks somewhere to the left of Steve. 

“I don’t.” 

His fingers run up and down the straps on his gym bag, tap on the canvas, on his thighs. He stares at the pastry bag like he wants to take it, but doesn’t make a move. 

“Thanks for the pastries.”

Steve sits on the park bench for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finished my last final today (sort of)! maybe i'll be able to update a little more regularly for a little while!
> 
> \- the drill bucky is doing is hard to find a picture of/I literally cannot find a picture but you have to be mobile af to do it. Think a [close grip snatch](https://youtu.be/xTd7gQu8NQI?t=14s) with a hold in the bottom position, and an even closer grip than what Vardanian has in that video. Some people have the flexibility to rotate the bar, too (it's an empty bar, as this is a mobility drill that I'm talking about).  
> \- [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/BEuhNCEyC4m/) is a hang snatch (it's the second one). I don't think you're actually supposed to be _able_ to do a triple at 80% but Nick Fury doesn't abide by our rules.  
>  \- Hookgrip is a company/brand that films a lot of lifters in big competitions (e.g. World weightlifting champs, olympics, European champs, etc). They sell merchandise and it's expensive but if you want to be a Cool Weightlifting Kid you gotta get a hookgrip shirt or something idk man.  
> \- I don't know why I decided to make the videos Norik-themed today but he's p good (/has great mobility and does weird stuff in training) and also in a relationship with Jenny Arthur, who represented the US in the 75 women's A session! I love her, she's great.


	13. twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the hell, Bucky.

It’s a picture of an 8½ x 11-sized envelope on what is obviously Steve’s kitchen table. It looks official, the circular emblem giving the school away before Steve even rips through the seal.

The picture is taken in haste. In the upper right-hand corner there is clearly a spoon on the table, a small circle of milk underneath the silver like Steve put it down without thinking. The bowl of cereal is just barely visible. Sarah’s gentle teasing isn’t reflected in the picture at all, the “ _Were you raised in a barn, Steven?_ ” lost to time as Steve hurriedly takes the picture. 

He knows what’s in it from the moment Sarah puts it on the table. Knows as soon as he picks it up, feels the weight of the envelope in his hands. This is not the apology of a school with too many “qualified applicants”. This is not the notification of another waiting list, keeping him on a cliff’s edge for as long as administrators see fit.

The picture goes to Clint and Bucky with an added _!!!!!!!!!!!_ for good measure.

When all is said and done, Steve can’t bring himself to open the envelope. Can only hold it in his hands while his mother watches him with increasing exasperation.

“Steven, if you don’t open that envelope I’ll open it for you.”

Steve carefully opens the envelope. Slides his finger underneath the paper to separate the glue, and in the process ends up tearing half of the front of the envelope away. Opening mail is not his strong suit, but in this moment he doesn’t care. 

On top of the papers there is a brochure with all the programs, all the options available to him because he _knows_ what paper sits just beneath the glossy pamphlet. He can see the emblem peeking out just beneath the packet, the heavy paper somehow making things more official.

He doesn’t bother to read the whole thing, scans it enough to find _“congratulate you on your acceptance_ ” before shoving it in his mother’s direction for her to read. She’s watching him carefully, like he’s liable to have an asthma attack. He hasn’t had one in years, his inhaler sitting on the windowsill where he placed it after his last attack, but that concern is always there. 

Sarah takes the paper from him, looks over it like she doesn’t already know what it says.

Steve is already reading over the financial aid paperwork, looking at his award amounts. It doesn’t cover the entirety of his education but it covers enough, and they’ve offered him work-study to help with the rest. Something warm rises in his chest, an overwhelming sense of relief after months of “ _we regret to inform you_ ” and “ _thank you for your application, however_ ”.

His phone vibrates, a congratulatory text from Clint consisting of enough exclamation points that someone who didn’t know better would think that Clint was the one going to college, not Steve.

Sarah wraps an arm around him, acceptance letter still in her hand. She presses a kiss to his forehead, has to stand on her toes to do it.

“Congratulations.”

They order pizza to celebrate and pore over the rest of the papers in the envelope. Housing applications (“ _there’s only_ one _residence hall?_ ”), mandatory physicals and vaccinations, class schedules, and work-study information.

His phone does not vibrate again for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

“I’m gonna puke.”

Steve inches away from Clint who, admittedly, looks a little green. He takes a long swig of his water before taking a careful sip of his preworkout. The color gradually fades from his face, but Steve keeps his distance. 

“This is pretty fucked up,” Clint says at last, glaring at the bar in the rack like it personally destroyed all his crops and salted the earth they grew in. “ _Pre_ -tty fucked up.”

“I mean.” Steve cuts himself off there. Clint has a point. Their next meet—a ‘practice meet’ for Nationals—is still months away and the extended volume cycle Fury is running is brutal. Their accessory work has been ramped up to eleven on even the lightest days. Steve has stumbled away from his bar on wobbly bambi legs on more than one occasion.

Clint raises his eyebrows. “You know I’m right.”

“You’re not _wrong_.” It’s as much as Steve will allow himself, knows that Fury made the program for a reason even if it does feel like the cruelest form of punishment.

“Say it.”

He shakes his head, already steeling himself for his next set. 90 kg isn’t even heavy. He can do 90 kg. That’s nothing. This is nothing. This is—

Steve throws himself out of his folding chair before he can mentally back out of what he’s about to do. He tightens his belt, and before he knows it he’s swooping under the bar. The center knurling digs into his traps, uncomfortable without the material of his shirt acting as a barrier. Gritting his teeth, he braces himself and takes the bar from the rack.

Ideally, when someone unracks the bar they begin their set immediately. Spending too much time on the set-up, on shuffling underneath the bar after it’s been taken out, expends too much energy. Energy that could be put to use elsewhere in the lift. Steve is aware of this, and yet he always finds himself moving his feet, taking deep breaths, everything he _should_ have done before he even started setting.

The first rep is easy, the first rep is _always_ easy. He’s dynamic, controlled on the way down and explosive on the way up. The second rep goes much the same as the first, minimal struggle. He doesn’t even need to catch his breath, thinks _this is fine_ before continuing.

By the sixth rep he’s suffering, telling himself _just four more just four more_ before his knees start to bend again. He’s running on autopilot now, knows the movements enough that he can check out and focus on the important things. Like getting enough air.

By the ninth rep he’s not even sure if he’s running on autopilot so much as his body has entered a state where the only two motions he knows how to do are down and then back up again. His breath comes in harsh pants, stomach straining against the belt as he forces himself back up through the sticking point that he tried _so hard_ to get rid of.

“One more, c’mon,” Clint calls, sounding perfectly content to let Steve continue to suffer. Steve makes a mental note to avoid spotting Clint in the future, see how he likes it.

The tenth rep does not come soon enough. Instead he stands in the top, forces more air into his lungs and then begins his descent. This time it’s not ‘controlled’ so much as it is a ‘horrifying drop’. He sticks at the bottom, legs struggling to catch up to the position his body is in. Through a litany of _fuckfuckfuckfuckshitfuck_ he forces his legs to work, grinds up through the sticking point. At the top, the bar bounces a bit as his knees lock. The knurling bites into his skin again, a casual reminder that he has four more to go.

The minute Steve undoes his belt, he takes a breath so deep he sees stars. His stomach roils, something he never experienced before now and something he’d rather not experience again. 

“ _Christ_.” 

Clint gives him a knowing look, nods sagely even as he stands and secures his own belt. A soldier going into battle. Someone preparing for the inevitable.

“Kiss for good luck?”

Steve snorts, regrets it when his stomach aches from the slight movement. “Might throw up on you instead.”

When Clint wrinkles his nose, he gives his friend a halfhearted thumbs up. 

“Godspeed.”

Clint’s set goes much the same way that Steve’s did. After he racks the bar he lowers himself carefully to the platform and lays, sprawled out. His hearing aids and shoes two bursts of purple against the muted beiges and blacks of the wood, his clothes.

“This is it this is where I die,” he gasps, arms flung out dramatically.

Steve raises an eyebrow, content to watch his theatrics from a safe distance. That green tinge is back, and he doesn’t want to be anywhere near that volcano if it erupts. 

“Want me to draw a chalk outline?”

Clint makes a noise that’s half laugh, half pained grunt. “Don’t you dare, you asshole. Don’t make me laugh.”

“The Ultimate Crime.”

“You _dick_.” 

They slog through the rest of their sets, a slow crawl to a finish line that seems to get farther and farther with each painful, grinding set. Steve nearly fails his tenth rep on his third set. Nearly topples forward on his fourth set because he over-corrects his balance. Clint manages to avoid embarrassing himself, but only just. The amount of time he spends laying on his platform increases with each set, until Fury comes out and reminds him that he is “ _a serious goddamn athlete_ ” and threatening to _“post this on your fucking blog yeah don’t think I don’t know about that_ ”.

After that, Clint is much less vocal in his complaints. Instead choosing to lay down behind his platform, maximizing his theatrics without incurring Fury’s wrath.

When they finish, they sit side-by-side, each more than happy to wallow in their own misery.

Clint is the first to break the silence, because Clint is terrible.

“You seen Bucky lately?”

That whistling is back in his ears, accompanying a sudden ache in his chest. He _hasn’t_ seen Bucky lately. His attempts to contact him have been unsuccessful. All his text messages are ignored. _Read 6:07 PM. Read 10:32 AM. Read 1:16 PM. Read 11:15 AM._ Steve’s calls are met with a similar fate; two rings and then straight to voicemail. By this point, Steve has memorized the beginning lines of Bucky’s message, knows the soft intake of breath at the beginning, the amused “ _shit, looks like I’m not here right now_ ”, which is usually when Steve decides to end the call. 

Steve’s expression must betray his answer, because Clint gives him a sympathetic look and seems to be about five seconds away from pulling him into a hug. Steve schools his expression into something a little less confused and hopes that it’s enough to deter him. He doesn’t need Clint’s sympathy. Bucky’s just busy. He’s sure of it. 

The silence descends again and stays as they clean up and get ready to leave. The gym is filling again with lifters just getting off of work, getting home from summer programs and other obligations. Steve doesn’t know these people as well, but feels a pang of empathy when he sees them staring at Fury’s programming on the whiteboard. 

He’s shouldering his bag to leave when a familiar figure slips through the door of the gym.

Bucky doesn’t look in his direction as he heads over to a platform in the back corner of the room. He sets his things down, puts on his shoes and begins his warm-up. There’s no stretching, none of his usual showing off. Each movement is purposeful and clearly part of a progression. Clean pulls from the thigh to clean pulls from the calf to power cleans. Power cleans to full cleans to clean and press. He’s quick, eyes fixed ahead like he’s not really thinking about it. Like it’s been programmed into him.

Fury’s programming doesn’t call for clean and jerks. Steve waits for Bucky to catch on, but he doesn’t. Moves straight from the bar to 70 kg without a second thought. His motions are crisp and fast, but everything else about him screams _tired_. Like he could benefit from sleeping for a few days. For a week. 

He does 70 kg for a triple, like it’s weightless. Drops the weight and is off to grab more plates before the bar hits the platform. 80 kg goes on the bar, and only then does he seem to realize that someone is watching. 

Steve can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, even as someone sets up on the platform in front of him, effectively blocking his view. His stomach aches.

When he takes a step toward the door, Bucky comes into view again. His eyes are no longer fixed on Steve, focused instead on the wall ahead of him as he sets up. The lift is the same, as easy as the other ones with the same ferocity that continues to catch Steve by surprise. He executes the triple flawlessly, no perceived change in energy levels until he steps off the platform and almost deflates against the plastic. Rotates his wrist once. Twice. Drops his hand into his lap. 

His break is almost too short, for the amount of work he’s doing. 95 is on the bar and he’s going again, rotates his wrist after every set.

 

* * *

 

 

 _get some sleep._  

_Read 2:43 AM_

 

* * *

 

Things come to a head on Wednesday.

“We’re gonna take a walk.”

Bucky looks up at him, shoelaces clutched in one hand, his foot halfway into his shoe. 

He blinks slowly. Steve’s eyes are drawn to the spot on Bucky’s bottom lip, red where he’s been biting it.

Steve doesn’t know what he expects, thinks distantly that Bucky might just make a run for it and leave his shoes and gym bag behind. It’s ridiculous and dramatic, but when has Bucky ever done anything by halves.

Bucky is still staring.

“You and me,” Steve repeats. “We’re gonna walk.”

Another beat. Bucky appears to be weighing his options. 

“Sure.”

They end up at Prospect again, each on opposite ends of the same bench. There’s a paper bag of cheap pastries between them, picked out in silence at a bakery down the street. Bucky picks at his lemon poppy seed muffin, tearing off little pieces to toss to a single pigeon that struts around excitedly in front of them.

The silence between them is unsettling. If he doesn’t talk now, he feels like they’re not going to get anywhere. Steve opens his mouth, speaks without thinking.

“I got into Brooklyn College.”

He would fight himself, if he could. Of all the shit to say.

Bucky tosses another piece of muffin to the pigeon, bottom lip firmly between his teeth. He doesn’t look at Steve.

“You heard back? From anywhere?” 

A couple walks by with their dog. It’s a little, yapping thing that sends the pigeon away. Without something to occupy his attention, Bucky stares at the rest of the muffin in his lap, like he’s trying to deconstruct it with his eyes.

The silence stretches on, taking Steve’s patience with it. Bucky seems content to pick at the rest of the muffin until he has a million tiny crumbs on a piece of saran wrap. When he shifts, he sends some of it onto the ground. There are no pigeons to pick it up this time. 

“I gotta—“ 

“No.” It’s more forceful than he would like, but it’s too late to take it back. Instead he takes advantage of the moment, turning to face Bucky completely. Bucky frowns down at the crumbs in his lap like they’re going to save him.

“Steve,” Bucky’s tone is bordering on pleading.

“Uh-uh.”

Bucky frowns again and reaches into the bag to pull out another pastry that he immediately begins taking apart. Little pieces of scone join the muffin on the saran wrap. Steve considers offering him his chocolate croissant. 

“What’d I do.”

“Nothing!”

“Was it when I grabbed the bar, ‘cause I thought you were joking around, y’know, I didn’t—“

“It’s not like that.” Bucky kicks his feet back and forth across the pavement. “Why the fuck would you think—“

“I dunno, Buck,” he says sardonically, “maybe ‘cause you never _told_ me anything.”

Bucky is silent again. Whatever plan he had, it’s clearly backfiring now and he knows it, knows he has nowhere to go. He scowls at the crumbs, like he blames them for his predicament.

When he speaks, it’s hidden beneath the sounds of the city. 

“Say again?”

Bucky takes a deep breath.

“I’m not going. To school.” His expression is blank, composed into something completely neutral.

“That’s it?” Steve almost laughs. “I mean, y’coulda told me that, Buck. Not everyone gets in on their first try—“

“Steve.”

He pauses mid-sentence. Bucky’s voice is too calm.

“I’m not going to school,” he repeats, emphasizing each word. Like Steve is supposed to look deeper. 

“Okay, but that’s—“

“ _I’m not going to school_.” There’s a tone that underlies Bucky’s words, desperate and lost.

“Buck, that’s—“

Bucky’s breath hitches. Steve feels like he’s been thrown in a tank full of cold water.

“I’m leaving.” He sounds breathless, like there’s not enough air to fill his lungs. Steve thinks back to Nationals, to Bucky running through the warm-up room, Bucky dry heaving into the toilet. This is that.

“Wait, tell me what’s going on maybe I can—“

“No, Steve,” Bucky says desperately, grabbing him by the shoulders. It gives him a chance to look at Bucky fully, take in the red eyes and the way his mouth moves like he’s having trouble getting the right words out. His breath hitches again. “I’m _leaving_.”

Another hitch followed by a desperate gulp of air.

Steve stares, at a loss. “I don’t understand.”

“Aleksander,” he takes a deep, slow breath. Lets it out. Tries again. “Aleksander got a call. When I was at—at the camp.”

The whistle starts again. Bucky’s hands slip from his shoulders, leaving cold spaces.

“I’m.” Bucky’s mouth moves again, that groping motion like he’s not sure what he’s trying to say. His breath hitches so violently that his shoulders jerk with the force of it. “I’m going. He’s. I’m going.”

When Steve got asthma attacks his mother would sometimes rub his back. He puts his hand between Bucky’s shoulder blades, rubbing in small circles. Bucky doesn’t shrug him off like he did at Nationals, continues to breathe in little bursts. Like the air can’t come in and whatever air _does_ get in isn’t coming out.

“Russia.” The word comes out in one of Bucky’s quick exhales as he tries to get his breathing under control.

Steve freezes. The whistling becomes something of a high-pitched static in his head.

“You’re what.” 

Bucky lets out a sound that could be a laugh, could be a sob. He opens his mouth, can’t get anything out. Closes it, tries again. “He’s sending me,” another gasp. Steve resumes the small circles. “To Russia. I’m going. To Russia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever write a thing and then throw it into the void just so you can crab-walk the fuck away because this is that.
> 
> \- anything above 3 reps is cardio it is Known  
> \- volume phases are the worst but also v important.  
> \- I spent a long time looking at the Brooklyn College website. There is legitimately only one residence hall that I could find and as far as I know living on campus isn't mandatory. Guess what Steve is going for~*~*~  
> \- I need to add a tag for "pastry destruction" I feel like that's v important why won't Bucky eat his damn pastries.  
> \- This chapter sponsored by "Self Control" by Frank Ocean


	14. thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> don't threaten me with a good time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **note: this chapter contains underage drinking**

Steve doesn’t know what to do, so he makes omelettes.

“I’m gonna put cheese on mine, how ‘bout you?” His voice sounds too loud, like he’s trying to talk over a million people instead of the sound of the sizzling eggs in the pan, the soft _hiss_ of the stove.

When he tries to get the spatula under the free edge of the egg, it sticks. He’s not very good at making omelettes.

Bucky sits at the kitchen table, forehead resting on the scuffed wood. The acceptance letter from Brooklyn College is about an inch away. His fingernails scratch absently at some unidentified dried blob of food from who-knows-when. Something in Steve’s chest aches.

“Mushrooms?” The question is too cheery-sounding, a little too fake. “Cheese? C’mon, Buck, I’m gonna put the rest of the muffins in there if you don’t tell me.”

Bucky rolls his head to the side. His eyes are still red, still glassy, but he’s not crying. His breathing has evened out. Small mercies.

“Mushrooms’re fine.”

“Anything else?”

A siren sounds somewhere outside. Bucky blinks at him, long and slow.

“Cheese, I guess.”

Steve goes about preparing the necessary fillings. He chops the mushrooms into little, uneven pieces and scrapes them into the middle of the egg, sprinkles some cheese on top. As a last-minute thought he grabs some lunchmeat from the fridge and tears it into little strips to lay over the cheese.

“Turkey okay?”

He doesn’t get a response. Bucky’s shoulders rise and fall in a steady rhythm, his forehead once again against the wood of the kitchen table.

Two pieces of toast go into the toaster. Steve makes a futile attempt at making a decent-looking omelette. In the end, he ends up scooping semi-scrambled eggs onto his own plate. Practice makes perfect, anyway.

Bucky jumps when the toast pops out of the toaster, flailing limbs barely keeping him upright as his chair leans dangerously far back. He shoots Steve a tired glare when he hears him laughing.

“I coulda died!" 

“But you didn’t." 

Steve cracks five more eggs into the pan, throws the two pieces of toast onto his plate and pops two more pieces into the toaster.

“But I _coulda_.”

Bucky rubs the sleep from his eyes. He doesn’t look much better than he did before the nap, but it’s better than the Bucky that was sitting at Steve’s kitchen table when he started cooking. 

They move in comfortable silence. The rustle of papers tells him that Bucky noticed the acceptance letter from Brooklyn College.

He thinks of Russia, of what he _knows_ of Russia. ‘Russia’ to Steve is whatever he learned in history class; information he took in long enough to retrieve during the final and then promptly forgot. The word brings to mind harsh winters and furry hats. He tries to fit Bucky into his mental representation of the country, succeeds only in imagining Bucky in one of those furry hats, being swallowed by a comically large coat. Trying to squat under 25 different layers to keep the cold out. 

He thinks of Bucky in Russia, and tries very hard not to think about the Bucky in the park. The Bucky who followed him home, dragging in great lungfuls of air. 

This time, the omelette comes out better. Not perfect, by any means, but it looks more like an omelette than the swiftly cooling monstrosity on his plate.

He drops the food in front of Bucky, who looks at it with confusion. 

“Do you even like eggs?” 

Steve, who is busy trying to stomach the eggy concoction as he shovels it into his mouth, makes a noise that’s partly amusement and partly an attempt to keep himself from choking.

“Nah.” 

Bucky snorts, carefully isolates a corner of omelette and puts it in his mouth. He chews thoughtfully for a moment before shoveling the rest onto one piece of toast. The next bite he takes is so big that he’s surprised Bucky doesn’t unhinge his jaw to catch everything. 

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

He realizes only moments later that any response of Bucky’s is going to be given to him through a mouthful of egg and toast. When he doesn’t feel egg projectiles, he looks up. Bucky shrugs, takes another abnormally large bite without having finished the first. 

When their plates are cleared, Bucky sprawls out on Steve’s couch. Steve, not wanting to take the floor yet again, shoves Bucky’s feet out of the way only to find them in his lap moments later.

“Your feet smell like death,” he says, scooting Bucky’s feet off his legs again. 

Bucky merely smirks at him and carefully, almost delicately, lifts one foot.

“Do _not_.” Steve is practically shoving himself through the back of the couch. “I will _not_ have your fuckin’ _feet_ on my _lap_ in my goddamn _house_ —“

“It’s payback,” Bucky says simply, delicately lowering his foot into Steve’s lap once again.

Steve chokes on air, or his own saliva. One of the two. “ _Payback_?”

“For finals.” Bucky’s other foot doesn’t land in Steve’s lap with nearly the same amount of control. Steve just barely manages to scoot out of the way before it hits him in the crotch.

Steve, knowing when to admit defeat, collapses back onto the couch. He ignores Bucky’s satisfied little smirk, the way he snuggles deeper into the couch with his hands behind his head.

“You ask me for a foot massage and I’m breakin’ your knees.”

 

* * *

 

“You hear about Bucky?”

Clint’s struggling to untie a particularly tricky knot in his laces. His chalked-up fingers slip over the strings again and again until Steve feels bad enough for him to wave his hands away and take a stab at the knot. 

While Steve struggles, Clint has a chance to consider the question. To formulate a thoughtful response, even.

“Nah.”

Steve just barely manages to squeeze his little finger under a small loop in the laces. He tugs, only to find it slipping away again as another part of the lace tightens the area again. He wonders, not for the first time, why Clint doesn’t just slip his shoes off like the rest of them. 

He begins picking at the knot again while Clint looks on. Fury is lugging what looks like yards upon yards of metal beams in between the platforms.

“Don’t all come t’help at once,” he calls as he moves back to transport another beam.

“Wouldn’t wanna fuck up your system,” Clint replies. He earns a glare for his response, one that shuts him up and allows Steve the silence he needs to finally undo the troublesome knot. He smacks Clint’s thigh and gets to his feet.

“Waitwaitwait.” Clint grasps at the edge of his basketball shorts, nearly pulling them down in the process. Steve makes an undignified noise that falls somewhere between a yelp and something vaguely donkey-esque. 

“What the fuck—“

“What about him?”

He brought this on himself, he _knows_ that, but he’s still dismayed when his stomach drops. Still, he carefully arranges his features into casual interest despite the growing ache in his chest. Despite the knowledge that this isn’t his to tell. 

“He’s moving.”

Clint tilts his head. “Like… to a different neighborhood?”

“Nah.” Steve busies himself with his gym bag, checking and re-checking that everything is put away. Anything to keep him from looking in Clint’s direction.

“A different… borough?”

He keeps up a silent mantra of _you brought this on yourself_ as he triple-checks the zippers on his bag. “Uh-uh.”

“… a different… state?” Clint’s tone has been growing more and more incredulous. “It’s a different state, right? Is it for college? D’you think he’ll come back and train with us sometimes, or—“

“Nah… not a different state,” Steve says at last. He’s run out of things to look at in his bag, moves on to examining a particularly interesting circle of chalk dust where he’s sure the chalk bucket used to sit. “It’s, uh… farther.” 

“Canada?” 

He sincerely hopes Clint is joking because he can only roll his eyes so far back. One look at his face tells him that Clint is very much under the impression that Bucky is moving to Canada.

Again, he’s struck by how much this isn’t his information to give.

“Iunno,” he replies with what he hopes is an indifferent shrug. Like Clint hasn’t seen how the two of them practically live out of the other’s pockets, like Clint hasn’t been privy to the sudden resurgence of their friendship.

Clint, bless him, merely stands and claps Steve on the shoulder. “Hope he likes moose.”

Steve tries to forget the conversation by burying himself in job applications. The campus coffee shop, dining halls, the university rec center. He writes about himself so much that it starts to feel like he’s writing about something else, a different Steve with a totally different skill set. On a few occasions he finds himself writing _Steve is a motivated and friendly individual_ , at which point he decides that a break might be for the best.

He has seventeen texts (all variations of ‘ _Steeeeeeeeeeve_ ’) and two missed calls, all from Bucky. 

“ _Hey Steve, just got this message from Clint and y’know, I just thought I’d ask_ what the fuck you were thinking _telling him I was leaving—_ “

The message cuts off there with a muffled “ _fucking christ”._ Steve deletes it and the message following it, which is apparently 3 minutes long and probably contains more of the same.

His phone vibrates in that moment, a message with an image attachment from Bucky. Steve’s thumb hovers over the notification until he gathers the courage to look at it. 

It’s a screenshot, the time at the top reading 16:15 and the little battery symbol at the top an alarming red. The conversation is between Bucky and someone whose name is just the unamused emoji and a series of thumbs downs followed by a pigeon.

_WHEN R U LEAVING_

_??????????_

_LEAVING_

_4 THE EMPTINESS_

_OF THE TUNDRA_

_wtf_

_did steve tell u_

_I GUESSED_

_WHAT KIND OF BOOZE DO U WANT_

The next message is a series of beer glass emojis with the 100 symbol interspersed. The sender—who Steve is fairly certain is Clint but he’s still unsure—sends another message composed only of the lady in the red dress emoji with a single thumbs-up at the end.

_wtf barton can u not_

_i don’t even want a party_

_ur taste in alcohol sucks_

_u suck_

Clint’s next message is just the eggplant and the tongue, which prompts a string of thumbs down emojis from Bucky.

_MY TASTE IN BOOZE IS IMPECCABLE ASK ANYONE_

_ASK FURY_

_ASK STEVE_

_DON’’’T ASK STEVE_

_im gonna kill him and then im gonna kill u_

_RUM IT IS._

Bucky’s message to Steve comes only a few seconds later, a series of interrobangs and nothing else.

_He asked :-(_

The ellipses appear for far too long, given Bucky’s response. Steve can picture him, upside-down on his bed while he writes text after angry text only to delete them for fear that they aren’t quite angry enough.

_i will end u_

_nobody needed 2 kno_

_i don’t even like rum_

_steve_

_ur gonna drag my drunk ass home Ii sawer to god_

Steve does what any reasonable person would do in his situation.

 _Sawer_.

Bucky’s response comes much faster this time.

_*swear_

_u motherfucker i will throw up on ur goddamn shoes dont think i wont_

_:-) :-) :-)_

 

* * *

 

 

How Clint landed his own apartment in Bed-Stuy is a mystery to Steve, who waits far too long for a bus that passes him by once. It almost passes him by a second time, but he makes sure to run after it like the desperate traveler he is.

The bus ride itself isn’t bad so much as it involves too many stops. Commuters get on and off, looking everywhere but at their fellow passengers. Sometimes they have children, fussy after standing out in the sun for too long, but most of the time they’re wrapped up in their own personal electronic devices.

Not that Steve has room to talk. His own attention has been split between his route and his phone since he left for the ‘party’.

_his bed is a goddamn matress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_rogers u sent me here 2 die_

Steve considers the text, unsure how much of it is Bucky’s usual flair for the dramatic and how much of it is actually Clint just being Clint in the comfort of his own home. He hasn’t been to Clint’s house since he started living on his own, but can only assume that his gym persona is merely an extension of an equally-disastrous outside persona.

Hopefully, though, he has furniture.

 _you could have said no. its not that bad._ :-) 

Bucky doesn’t text back. Steve gets off at his stop and walks the remaining 4 blocks to the address Clint gave him. 

The building has seen better days, framed by a picturesque brownstone and an alley. He makes quick work of the steps, taking them two at a time until he hears music and familiar voices.

Clint’s door goes perfectly with the building itself. The apartment number must have been _46_ at some point, but the _4_ now hangs upside-down and the _6_ appears to be missing its top. As he knocks, what’s left of the _6_ rattles against the wood.

He waits. Inside, someone yells “ _hey, careful with that_ ”, but nobody comes to the door.

After another few awkward seconds outside Clint’s apartment, Steve lets himself in.

Clint’s apartment appears to be made up of furniture Steve occasionally sees sitting out on the sidewalk on his way to the gym. It’s mismatched, stained in places, and ripped in others. There’s a dangerous-looking couch against the wall and a coffee table made out of cinderblocks with a slab of wood on top. Clint doesn’t have a kitchen table, but he has two metal folding chairs sitting across from one another. There’s a third metal folding chair, half-collapsed against the wall closest to the kitchen. Something that looks like it was a dignified-looking ottoman in its prime but is now a tired footstool awaiting death sits just to the left of the couch, in the corner in front of a purple standing lamp. The lamp’s paint is chipped and the light occasionally flickers if someone comes too close to it.

Steve is reminded again of Bucky’s frantic texts regarding Clint’s sleeping situation. Clearly, he owes him an apology.

“Steve!” Clint’s voice is a little too loud for how close he is. One look tells him that Clint is both spectacularly drunk, and not wearing his hearing aids, which explains everything.

It is almost 8 PM.

Clint maybe says “you made it”, but it’s difficult to tell over what is possibly the worst music Steve has ever heard. It sounds a little like Clint, at some point, searched for “cool party music” and nothing else.

“Thanks for uh,” Steve’s gaze falls on the kitchen counter. The bottles are probably nice than 90% of the furniture in the apartment. “The invitation.”

There’s a moment where Clint looks like he’s about ready to fall over, possibly into Steve. The more Steve looks around, the more he realizes that he knows absolutely no one in the living room at the party. 

“Where’s uh… where’s Bucky?” 

Clint takes a moment to gather his thoughts before pointing him in the direction of a room toward the back. “Maybe bring ‘im s’more’ve…” whatever Clint is saying gets drowned out by the music, which is ramped up to eleven without any warning. Still, Steve follows Clint’s directions, grabbing a nondescript bottle of alcohol and wandering in the direction of one of the rooms at the end of Clint’s hallway. 

The first room he looks in is clearly a bedroom. True to Bucky’s word, the bed is very much a mattress positioned in the back corner. Clint has a cheap-looking bookshelf full of old paperbacks, their spines cracked in some places and completely broken in others. On his way out he nearly trips over the corner of one of the many wooden crates stacked in a makeshift “dresser” by the door. In anyone else’s apartment they might be stylish, a creative DIY.

When he finds Bucky, his friend isn’t quite three sheets to the wind but he’s getting there as quickly as he can. There’s a red solo cup next to him and for a moment it’s so stereotypically _high school_ that Steve wants to laugh.

Bucky’s eyes are glassy, his movements slow and disorganized as he turns to look in Steve’s direction.

“Steve.”

It’s not the exuberant greeting he got at the door, that’s for sure.

“Buck.”

He lowers himself to the floor next to Bucky. They’re in something that looks like it might be a ‘study’—a clapboard desk next to a window and another cheap bookshelf crowding a second ugly standing lamp into a corner.

Steve doesn’t know what he expects when he takes a swig from the bottle, but the burning shocks him enough that he splutters.

Smooth.

Steve’s complete lack of suavity seems to break Bucky out of whatever funk he was in because he cackles hard enough to nearly send him sideways. The solo cup teeters dangerously before falling over, empty. 

“There’s a chair right there, yanno.” Steve directs Bucky’s attention to the swivel chair of questionable structural integrity. It’s right next to them, far too low to the ground to be comfortable but still very much a chair.

Bucky waves the chair away, a prince dismissing someone in his court.

“Fell offa it. Fuckin’ thing’s dangerous.”

Steve makes a vaguely interested noise, takes a (much more suave) swig of whatever is in the bottle. He offers it to Bucky a moment later, who accepts the bottle.

“So…?”

“So what?” 

“D’fend my honor, Rogers. That chair’s be-besmirched m’ good name.” He says it like _bee-smirch’d_. Steve feels a little warm, a little fuzzy.

“Shit, Buck,” he says wryly, “I ain’t even brung my tire iron.”

“Y’gotta remember your tire iron, Rogers. Th’fuck you gonna do if some… some tires need,” Bucky makes an ironing motion with his hand, apparently at a loss for words. He’s so offended that Steve can’t help but laugh.

“What?” Bucky’s drunk enough that his words are getting a little long around the vowels. The final consonants drop off more than usual. 

Steve grabs the bottle before Bucky can take another drink. It still burns, still tastes like what he thinks gasoline smells like, but he manages. He feels Bucky’s eyes on him when he lowers the bottle, sees him lick his lips.

“Nothin’.” The warmth is spreading from the center of his chest to his fingertips.

“Yer a lightweight, yanno that?” Bucky leans over to grab the bottle, one hand braced on the floor. 

“Nah.” Check and _mate._ He decides to argue further by holding the bottle out of Bucky’s reach. The other stretches out his other hand, fingers just barely brushing the glass. 

“ _C’monnnnn_.”

“Nope. No more. Done. This is for me now.” 

“ _Steve_.” It’s drawn out, a pleading ‘ _Steeeeeeeve_ ’ that trails off into a childish scowl. Steve takes advantage of Bucky’s pouting, taking a drink that turns out to be too much to swallow at once. For a moment, he wonders if this is what pufferfish feel like.

Bucky leans over a bit more, supporting himself on his fingertips. “Y’asshole, it’s _my_ party. Gimme.”

“D’you even know th’ people out there?”

“Naaah,” Bucky waves them off. Reaches a little further. His fingernails make small noises against the glass. “This’ nice, though.”

Steve isn’t sure what he means by ‘this’. He wonders how Bucky could think something is ‘nice’ when he’s literally half in his lap, reaching for a bottle of something Steve won’t even let him have.

“’Course it is.” He takes another drink, makes sure to turn his head to keep the bottle out of Bucky’s reach.

“C’mon I can’t do this all day, yanno,” Bucky complains as he tries to stretch the extra inch and fails dramatically. His fingers slip on the floor and he topples, arm still outstretched, into Steve’s lap. 

“Serves y’right.” Steve takes a swig. His limbs feel heavy and slow. Everything seems to stutter and run together at once. Bucky mumbles something, turns so he’s staring up. 

“How’s th’view?”

Bucky has a dazed look on his face. He blinks and his eyes take a moment to catch up again. Seconds pass. Steve can feel Bucky’s ribcage expand, can feel the warm weight of him on his legs.

“S’okay.” It’s so soft that Steve almost misses it. Bucky licks his lips. His gaze falls somewhere on the lower half of Steve’s face and stays there. 

Steve wants to offer him the bottle again. His pulse picks up at the thought of Bucky licking the excess drops of whiskey off his lips. The warmth has turned into a tingling sensation, like lightning at his fingertips.

“Jus’ okay?” His voice sounds weak to his ears. He sets the bottle down next to his thigh, considers running his fingers through Bucky’s hair just because. 

Bucky’s lips quirk into a smile, eyes traveling up until he’s looking directly at Steve. “Gotta get a better look.”

He moves, and Steve is suddenly _very_ aware of their proximity. He can feel Bucky’s warm breath on his face, can smell the whiskey he was drinking and underneath that something like fruit, maybe the drink from earlier. They’re close enough that he can count Bucky’s eyelashes, and he might also have a heart attack while he does it.

“Hey.” 

Steve's pretty sure his voice is done changing, and yet here they are. 

Bucky’s grin is slow, just like the rest of his movements. Like the way he blinks, the way he moves just a little closer.

“ _Hey_.”

The voice doesn’t come from either of them. It’s like throwing a handful of gravel into a pond. Bucky starts violently, practically falling backwards in his haste to move back to an acceptable distance. Steve jerks back, his head slamming hard into the wall. 

The speaker leans against the doorway, sways there for a moment, and then seems to regain her balance. She’s got a solo cup in hand, blue this time. Clint must be running low on the red. Steve tries to focus on the color, tries to get his heart rate under control. 

“Where’s th’ john?”

Bucky points across the hall to a closed door.

The girl gives a sloppy, two-fingered salute before stumbling in the correct direction.

Steve can hear the loud, awful music in the other room. He slides up the wall until he’s on his feet, a little unsteady but still miles above Bucky, who seems to be stuck where he’s sitting on the floor. His legs are splayed in front of him; hands on either side of his hips and a deer in the headlights look on his face. 

Something breaks somewhere in the front of the apartment. Steve takes a deep, steadying breath, offers Bucky his hand.

Bucky falls asleep as soon as they get on the bus. He's leaning against Steve's shoulder, drooling attractively onto Steve's sweatshirt. Steve contemplates waking him up as they pass his neighborhood.

In the end, he misses his stop, content to enjoy the warm weight against his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- uh so originally i was not going to make 90% of this chapter about clint's disaster apartment but here it is and i have a lot of headcanons about clint because i love him.  
> \- have you ever seen that _it's always sunny_ episode where mac and charlie and dennis try to throw a Cool Party in their Party Mansion because i didn't realize how much clint's inability to throw a party was indirectly inspired by this. have i mentioned how much i love clint yet.  
>  -"I ain’t even brung my tire iron" comes from [this](http://65.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcwxghGmqi1r9b28i.jpg) beautiful panel.  
> \- do people even call the bathroom "the john" anymore? that girl does.  
> \- i have a v limited knowledge of public transportation in brooklyn but everything i looked at/my subway experiences tell me that getting to bed-stuy is An Issue  
> \- i did not know how to pronounce "besmirched" until i wrote this chapter and had to look up the proper pronunciation.  
> \- how do you copy/paste emojis into word i feel like such a tool writing out _by hand_ what emojis people use in this, the year 2016. surely we as a technological society have moved beyond that.  
>  \- sorry there's no Cool Weightlifting Things to share this time around, but i feel like this chapter had a lot without like. adding in lifting.


	15. fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pineapple on pizza: the riveting debate.

Morning comes much too quickly.

He expects to wake up with half a million unanswered texts. His phone will vibrate as one message after the other filters in, emoji after word after emoji. He expects to wake up to _something_ , even a casual “ _what are we_?” would suffice. 

It takes him ages to muster up the energy to actually drag his phone off the bedside table, where he’d thrown it before falling face-first onto the bed. It takes even longer for him to recruit the muscles necessary to swipe his finger across the broken screen. He feels each broken piece of glass shift under his finger, as he always does. It really is time for a new phone. It’s always time for a new phone. 

The light hurts his eyes in the otherwise dark room. He had the sense to close the blinds before he fell into bed, which is a small mercy when his own phone is trying to blind him. Rude.

When he’s adequately prepared himself for the onslaught of brightness, he lifts his head. His face has made an indentation in the pillow, he thinks he sees a spot of drool but he doesn’t really care to check. Really, what is one spot of drool when his head is full of rocks. 

It takes another couple seconds for the screen to come into focus, but when it does all the energy he’s managed to muster up bleeds out of him. It’s a little like watching someone psych themselves up for a big lift only to give up halfway through the pull. There’s no little red number next to the envelope icon, there are no missed calls. His stomach sinks, but presses the message picture just in case. Phones can be deceiving. 

Eventually, keeping his eyes open becomes too much of an effort. The rocks in his head are being systematically broken down to make room for more rocks, which in turn are being moved aside to make room for massive boulders. They weigh his eyelids down. He doesn’t have time for this.

The next time he wakes up, his phone tells him it’s 5 o’clock. His room is just as dark as it was when he first woke up, but when he pushes aside his blinds the sun is out and creating long shadows on the sidewalk outside. He’s missing his usual evening training time but since he’s only recently been promoted from “immovable quarry” to “actual living, breathing person” he feels justified in rearranging his schedule. 

This time, when he unlocks his phone he has a little red **1** next to the messaging app. His heart does a little skipping beat, a quick _one-two_ that has his breath catching in his throat. 

_wanna come over n watch europeans?_

The little ellipses appear before Steve has a chance to reply. While he is still formulating a coherent response in his head. He remembers Bucky’s weight on his legs, the quirk of his lips and the alcohol on his breath. His heart does the little skipping thing again, like he might have a heart attack (but he won’t).

_aleksander got some weird ho_

_**hookup jfc_

_anyway europeans also orerd r a pizza_

Steve waits a minute to see if the ellipses appear again. 

_I’m sorry about last ni_

The text disappears with one frustrated press of the backspace arrow. 

_about yesterday_

Gone.

 _orerd r_.

Throwing his phone isn’t nearly as satisfying as it should be. It lands facedown in the jumbled mess of comforters and pillows, because he didn’t have the heart to throw it anywhere else, didn’t want to risk breaking it any more than it already is.

With his text sent, he goes about selecting his outfit for the evening’s activities. He thinks of Bucky’s house, the spotless surfaces and the dust-free trophies in the entryway and abruptly sets down the t-shirt he got at the local Brooklyn Barbell meet. It’s a little too big on him now that he’s washed it a few times, and it has a stain that might be toothpaste or some kind of sauce that never quite washed out. The ‘B’ in ‘Barbell’ has totally chipped away.

His phone makes a muffled vibrating sound. Steve ignores it in favor of having an existential crisis over whether he should wear jeans or sweats.

The phone vibrates again. 

And again. 

Steve is halfway through pulling on his best pair of sweatpants but he still manages to hop over just in time to accept Bucky’s call. 

“ _Where are you?_ ” His voice is muffled, like he’s talking through cotton or, more likely, a mouthful of food.

Steve tries to hold his phone against his ear and put his left leg through his sweatpants at the same time. The effect is something of a desperate hop as he tries to keep himself balanced.

“I’m on my way,” he manages as he leans precariously to the right.

There’s a soft smacking sound on the other end of the phone and then something that can only be Bucky swallowing whatever is in his mouth. Steve hopes it isn’t the pizza. His stomach growls in agreement.

“ _Bullshit_.” The word comes clear this time. “ _’sides I ordered like. Three pizzas. If you hurry up I bet you can have some b’fore Becca finds out._ ”

He manages to shove his left leg into the correct side of his sweats. The shirt he’s chosen is a little tight, a little old, but it’ll have to do. Steve hasn’t had the pleasure of interacting much with Becca, but the few encounters he has had have left him with the impression that he doesn’t want to be fighting with her over _anything_ , much less an entire pizza. 

“ _What kinda pizza you want?_ ”

Steve shrugs and belatedly realizes that Bucky can’t see him through the phone. “Ionno, I’m fine with whatever.” 

“ _Gonna get some real gross shit, Rogers_.” Bucky says it like a warning. Like Steve isn’t already aware that if it were up to Bucky, every pizza would have pineapple on it regardless of the other toppings.

“I’ll suffer through,” Steve deadpans.

“ _You better._ ” 

Bucky hangs up without another word.

 

* * *

 

Steve can’t remember the last time he was in the Barnes’ living room, but his feeling of shock that the couch doesn’t have plastic over it feels a little like déjà vu. Despite the television mounted on the wall and the jumbled mess of DVDs in the wooden cabinet to the right of the fireplace it still feels like a library, like he should be careful where he steps just in case something irreplaceable falls into his path.

Bucky sprawls on the couch the same way he sprawls on every other available surface. He’s completely oblivious to the fact that his house is something you’d see in a museum, like a dollhouse open to the public. Steve doesn’t have to try too hard to picture it, can picture the little doll family seated at the wooden dining room table that looks like it hasn’t seen a shared meal in years, if it has at all.

The warm smell of pizza reaches him before he sees the boxes, and for a brief moment he thinks that Bucky decided to forgo his usual pineapple. It’s only when he gets a little closer that he detects a sweet undertone to the otherwise savory smells. That asshole. 

“You shouldn’t have,” Steve says wryly, shoving Bucky’s legs out of the way so he can sit down on the couch.

“Yeah, well,” Bucky pauses to snag a piece of pineapple and pepperoni pizza. He rips off a good-sized chunk with his teeth. Some of the sauce sticks to his chin, but he doesn’t appear to be too bothered by it. “I’ma nice guy, what can I say.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “Do you talk with your mouth full around other people, or is it just me?”

Bucky chews for a moment, forehead wrinkled as if he’s deep in thought. “Ionno, guess I never thought about it,” he mumbles around a mouthful of pizza.

“Gee.”

Steve grabs his own piece, carefully picking off each and every chunk of pineapple and depositing them in the open hand that Bucky practically shoves under his nose. When he’s sure he’s gotten all of them he watches Bucky jam the whole stack of them into his mouth, chewing gleefully while Steve makes noises of disgust. 

“I’ve decided.”

Bucky makes a noise of interest, but thankfully doesn’t open his mouth again.

“You’re not a real person. You’re an alien.”

He swallows the pineapple before speaking. It’s the little things.

“Says _you_.”

“Says everyone. Says Becca, probably.”

“Yeah well, Becca says a lot of shit.”

Bucky effectively ends their conversation by turning the sound up on the television as the first lifter steps onto the platform. She’s a tiny thing, one of the lighter women in the 48 kg class, but that doesn’t make her any less interesting. Steve thinks again of Bucky’s younger sister, a tiny thing even at sixteen. Did Aleksander ever ask her to pick up a barbell? Or was his focus only on Bucky.

“Becca do any weightlifting?” It sounds much less casual than he wants it to, too abrupt.

Bucky makes a noncommittal noise and reaches for another slice of pizza. 

They get through another two lifters before he actually answers Steve’s question.

“Gymnastics.” 

Steve reaches for another piece of pizza. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They let the conversation lapse again, content to listen to the announcers attempt to narrate a sport neither of them seem to know much about. Somewhere between the snatch and the clean and jerk, Bucky slides his feet into Steve’s lap. He stretches out until his head is practically on the couch cushions instead of the armrest.

The rest of the 48 session passes in silence. They’re halfway through the women’s 53 session when Bucky decides to break the comfortable quiet.

“That’s him.” 

On the television they’re panning slowly around the warm-up room. Athletes are in various states of preparedness, doing sets with the bar or lounging in their chairs. The camera moves again by a platform in the back corner. There’s a girl seated in the white folding chair, her red singlet pulled down off her shoulders to reveal the familiar swirl of red and white. As the camera focuses on her, she tugs her hair back in a ponytail and sits back as a man approaches her to massage her shoulders. Her hair is red like her singlet, red like her t-shirt.

“Who?”

Steve knows the answer before Bucky even opens his mouth to speak. The man is dressed in the same red and white as the girl, the same swirls. His hair is buzzed close to his head. 

The girl catches the camera pointed in their direction. She raises a hand in greeting.

“My coach.”

The pizza sits heavy in Steve’s stomach. The food in his mouth has the consistency of cement and takes all his strength to force it down. Bucky isn’t looking at him, choosing instead to pick the pieces of pineapple off what’s left of the pizza. He pops them into his mouth one by one. 

“Your coach.” 

Steve’s back in the park again with Bucky’s hitching breaths filling the space between them. He’s at the party with Bucky on his legs and their faces inches apart, time slowing to a crawl and the noise of the other room fading into the background. 

“—go up, so I guess I gotta start eating, y’know?”

Bucky’s chattering filters back to Steve in bits and pieces. He takes a deep breath. Holds it. Then another. Bucky’s fiddling with a hole in the knee of his sweats, bounces the foot resting on Steve’s thigh like he’s got too much energy and not enough space to get rid of it. 

The lapse in conversation doesn’t register with Steve until it’s gone on too long. Bucky pulls his feet off of Steve’s lap, repositions himself so he’s sitting cross-legged on the other end of the couch. 

“Huh.” It’s all he can think to say, and it’s not even much of a response. It’s the sound someone makes when they aren’t really listening, a parent peering over the top of their paper while their child talks about a class field trip. A disinterested stranger on the subway trying to end a conversation. A regretful participant in a date that’s gone on too long. _Huh_.

Bucky reaches for a piece of pizza only to tear off the crust. He tugs it into little pieces, like the scone at the park, like the muffin, crumbs scattered in his lap.

He dumps the pieces on the cardboard lid of the pizza box this time. 

Steve forces his attention back to the television. The red haired girl is approaching the platform for her third and final lift. She’s followed herself on every attempt, everyone else having finished before her. Her belt is the only thing that isn’t red. Red hair. Red shirt. Red shoes. Brown belt.

Her movements are deliberate and confident; from the way she coats her hands with chalk to the yell she gives when she approaches the bar. She stomps her foot, a sharp _crack,_ like a gun. The audience falls silent, except a few people who yell back at her. She doesn’t acknowledge them. 

The clean is easy, a quick up and down. She pops the bar off her shoulders with ease, repositions her hands almost impossibly far off to the sides. 

When she jerks, the noise of crowd is deafening, even a whole world away. Bucky reaches hastily for the remote, glancing guiltily in the direction of the hallway. Steve tries to imagine Aleskander scolding Bucky for having the television too loud. He can’t picture it even with the stern pictures of the man in the entryway, the few brief exchanges they've had.

“ _—just rubbing it in, now_ ,” one of the announcers complains when the crowd has quieted. “ _Secures first place with her first clean and jerk and comes back two more times, I mean with the drug allegations alone--_ “

The announcer’s voice gets softer and softer until it fades to nothing. When Steve looks at Bucky his lips are pressed together in a thin line.

Natalia Romanova takes the podium. This time, she waves at the camera with a smile on her face.

 

* * *

 

 

The week before Nationals, Steve hits a 140 kg clean and jerk. He almost loses the jerk behind him but manages to save it by the skin of his teeth, wrists bent backward, his elbows quaking. It’s not the best lockout, but a good lift is a good lift.

The week before Nationals, Fury Barbell Club becomes Fury Strength Systems. The pull-up rig looms, large and ugly, in the space between the two rows of classrooms. Nick buys out the space to their right, unveils a second room full of metal squat racks and enough black bumper plates to outfit an entire crossfit gym.

The week before Nationals, Bucky shows up to the gym once and then never again. His shoes are conspicuously absent from their usual cubby.

Steve texts Bucky _where r u_

Fury signs a deal with a local crossfit gym in need of a new location, in the week before Nationals.

Steve snatches 100 kg for a double, in the week before Nationals. 

Steve texts Bucky _come to the gym_

The week before Nationals, Bucky shows up at Steve’s apartment on his way to Grand Central. He’s hunched under the weight of two large duffle bags and there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts bag clutched in his right hand. Steve can smell greasy food and cheap cheese substitutes. Bucky’s breathing hard like he ran a marathon.

“Gotta fix your damn elevator” is what he says.

“Walked up a million fuckin’ flights of stairs” is what he says.

Steve stares at him, framed by the doorway like this is any other kind of visit. Like it’s a normal Thursday and not something else entirely.

The bags make muffled _thud_ s when they hit the ground outside the apartment. The Dunkin’ Donuts bag gets tossed on top, the sound of crinkling paper filling the silence. Bucky stands on the threshold, the arches of his feet balanced on the scratched metal. Once, Steve watched a show where vampires had to be formally invited before they could come inside. It comes to him in little snippets: a vicious-looking blonde in a leather jacket snarling at a girl on the other side of an invisible force field.

“Goin’ to JFK” is what he says, after a beat. His hoodie is open over the _nothing feels as good as a nice snatch_ t-shirt that Fury begrudgingly allowed his name to be attached to a few years ago. The lettering is cracked but the design is there, the _FBC_ on a barbell where the center knurling should be. The steady whisper of the zipper fills the silence as Bucky fiddles with the metal, zips and unzips until it gets stuck and his hands twitch like they’re looking for something else to do. 

“Yeah?” Is what Steve says. He doesn’t quite cross his arms, but he wants to.

“Yeah.” Bucky’s smile is like water, trickling into place. Steve makes himself look at his shoes, at the way Bucky bunches up the edge of his hoodie in his fists.

Bucky isn’t a vampire, he doesn’t need special permission to come inside. Steve wants to tell him as much, to drag him inside until the AirTrain leaves the station, until his plane takes off and leaves him at the terminal. He imagines Bucky returning home, on the Far Rockaway train.

“ _Well, shit_ ,” is what imaginary Bucky says.

“ _Guess I’m not goin’ to Russia after all_ ,” is what imaginary Bucky says. 

Real Bucky teeters back on his heels like he’s going to fall without catching himself.

Real Bucky shoves his hands in the wrinkled pockets of his hoodie and looks at his feet for what feels like a long time.

“You gonna e-mail me, or what?”

Steve’s voice comes out like it’s digging its way out of a pile of glass. He clears his throat but it doesn’t make it any better. “Gotta tell you all about how I won Nationals.”

Bucky snuffles out something that could be a laugh if he tried hard enough. When he looks at Steve his eyes are red. Pre-Nationals nerves red. Park bench conversations red.

“Don’t fuck up too bad,” is what he manages to force out when his mouth isn’t groping for the right words. “Someone’s gotta make FBC look good ‘cause I won’t—“

His voice stops, jaw snapping shut with a _click_ that sounds like it was hard enough to hurt. Steve’s stomach aches.

They stare at the space between them, where the tile of Steve’s sorry excuse for an entryway meets well-worn carpet. Bucky breathes in for two counts, out for three. Steve rubs his eyes to make them feel less like they’ve been put in vats of sand. The juncture where the carpet meets the tile swims in his vision when he brings his hands away. This wasn’t part of the plan. 

The smile drips back onto Bucky’s face, bit by bit. 

“Guess I’d better…” 

“Yeah.” Steve swipes at his eyes again, feels his own smile trickle back in place. Like it’s just a weekend trip. Like he didn’t boil his entire life down to two raggedy duffle bags. 

Bucky takes another one of those slow, measured breaths. His smile looks like it hurts. “Hey, I got… I got too many um… I’m not gonna eat my sausage, egg, and cheese, d’you, maybe… ‘cause it’s early ‘n all.” 

It’s five o’clock in the afternoon. 

“Sure,” is what Steve says.

The paper bag crinkles when he takes it. There’s grease staining the whole right side. He’s not hungry. 

“I gotta…” Bucky’s smile trembles, a lake disturbed by someone skipping stones.

“Safe… um…” Steve takes a deep breath, tries to let it out just as smoothly as Bucky did. “Safe… that.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” 

Bucky fiddles with the zipper again. The whisper of metal against metal until he seems to realize where he’s standing, that he’s effectively blocking the end of the conversation. 

This time when he rocks back on his heels, he catches himself. Framed by two bags, he gives a tiny salute. Another watery smile.

Steve closes the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had comprehensive exams, so i apologize for the delay.
> 
> \- i forget when the European Championships usually are, but i feel like they occur pretty close to Nationals. I could be wrong. i'm taking artistic liberties.  
> \- in the 2015 world championships the announcers for like 75% of the sessions were awful. one guy was like "i bet if you were on the very edge of the platform you could drop it back and it'd count" like please don't you're embarrassing the entire country.  
> \- jk the US embarrassed themselves. all the medalists had to stand on barrels. they got cowboy hats.  
> \- the UK (i think?) generally has a rly good female announcer, idk if she'd actually do the announcing at Europeans or when she started working as a commentator.  
> \- the outfit/design i'm describing on natalia and her/bucky's coach is kind of similar to [this](http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Tatiana+Kashirina+Olympics+Day+9+Weightlifting+wzB3b4yLcv6l.jpg), which i've seen pretty regularly on the russian athletes and their coaches. p.s. i went like 10 whole chapters without a video or picture of tatiana kashirina i want you all to be v proud of me.  
> \- a lot of the weightlifting clubs i've seen operate out of crossfit gyms, or are combined with crossfit gyms. i feel like Nick would see it as a good business opportunity, although there is definitely some uh. animosity. sometimes. between weightlifters and crossfitters.


	16. fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an interlude

**Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Bucky,

How was your flight to Russia? Hope it wasn’t too long! :-)

Just wanted to let you know that I didn’t totally embarrass FBC at Nationals. My mom came took pictures.

Steve  
  


**james barnes** <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>  
_to Steve Rogers_ <srogers212@gmail.com>

steve,

the flight to russia was okay, i watched a lot of weird movies and then like halfway through i remembered i can’t speak russian for shit so i tried to learn. i can ask where the bathroom is and maybe tell someone to go fuck themselves that’s about it

excuse you asshole you can’t tell me you have _actual real life pictures_ and not tell me about them or send them what kind of friend are you who do you take me for pics or it didn’t happen you cheapskate

here’s a pic (because im a good person) im the one melting into the sidewalk.

bucky

 

* * *

 

 

Steve has to really take a minute to process what he’s looking at, because at first glance nothing really coincides with Russia as he thinks of Russia. First, there is no endless expanse of frozen tundra. Looking at the picture doesn’t conjure long, harsh winters or even so much as make him want to reach for the nearest sweatshirt. In fact, everything looks almost disappointingly normal.

There are trees planted outside of a (normal) brown building and outside, and in front of the (normal) concrete steps, dressed in a pair of red and black basketball shorts and wearing a black tank top is none other than Bucky Barnes. True to his words, he does appear to be melting into the sidewalk.

Steve’s eyes move to the second figure in the picture and a million little light bulbs go off in his head.

Away from the bright lights, without the raised platform, Natalia Romanova looks small. Average. She’s wearing a pair of black leggings and a red t-shirt with ‘Russia’ across the front in white. If it weren’t for the fact that he saw her competing on behalf of her country only a week ago, he wouldn’t have assumed she was an athlete at all.

Steve looks a little more, takes in the complete absence of any snow or polar bears or large, furry hats. It’s a little disappointing. Like Bucky could be just down the street.

 

* * *

 

 

 **Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Bucky,

Here are the pictures my mom took at Nationals! I went 110/143 and took third! :-O It’s probably because of bodyweight. I weighed in light. Fury says I need to eat more if I’m “really serious about this bulking shit”, so it’s eggs and more eggs for me. :-( 

Do you train with Natalia Romanova now? How’s the new place? How much cabbage do you eat on a daily basis? These are important questions.

Steve  
  


**james barnes** <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>  
_to Steve Rogers_ <srogers212@gmail.com>

steve,

first of all FIRST OF ALL, STEVEN you didn’t tell me you could snatch that much look at you go!!!! my little slugger all grown up, almost brings a tear to my eye (almost). i can’t even make fun of you about the eggs bc vasily had me see the nutritionist and they want me to shove an unholy amount of food in my actual face and if i never have to eat anything again it’ll be too soon. but enjoy your eggs i guess.

natalia is pretty cool, i met her when i went for the training camp, but her english isn’t very good and we already talked about my excellent russian skills. she's teaching me though and i'm gonna teach her some words in english (nice ones! i can see you making That Face steve don’t look at me like that). the new place is good, it’s a place next to vasily’s house, kinda like an add-on i guess. we have housing at the модун but vasily says the other athletes are too noisy and we gotta get some sleep sometimes, yanno? it’s me and natalia mostly but sometimes we get other weightlifters when they come to visit. idk why you’d wanna visit here but.

don't get fresh with me asshole there’s still time to make fun of the egg thing. who doesn’t like eggs? i learned how to make pirozhki and the nutritionists don’t give a fuck because i’m supposed to go up like two weight classes i'm either gonna be jacked as shit or i'm gonna look like you.

say hi to everyone for me, i miss you     guys.

bucky

 

 **Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Bucky,

It’s totally normal for people to not like foods that they’ve had too much of. Except for you, because you’re an alien and the laws of nature obviously don’t apply. You’re going to hate eggs too, I bet. Just you wait. >:-)

You should teach me some stuff in Russian! I was looking through the classes they’re offering at my school and that’s one of them. Maybe I’ll take it and we can have conversations, because I’ll bet you’ll pick it up faster than I will. Because of exposure and stuff. Natalia sounds nice.

Okay but to be fair you still didn’t answer me about the cabbage thing. Please don’t burn down your house we all know you’re a terrible cook. LOL. 

Listen ‘jacked as shit’ and ‘look like me’ are the saem thing, don’t knock it until you try it. Clint says hi. He says other stuff, too, but I’m not going to repeat it.

   We miss you, too.

Steve

 

 **Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Hey, Buck!

Just wanted to see how things are going! I started my classes and they’re really tough, but I like them. I got a job at the university “fitness center”, which is a really nice way of saying “gym”, I guess. It mostly means I get to scan peoples’ IDs all afternoon but sometimes I get to watch people try to squat and that’s always kind of funny. I probably shouldn’t laugh LOL.

How is your training? Is it different from here? Have you had any kind of cabbage literally at all? Come on, I’m your best friend, you can tell me. :-P

Fury merged with a crossfit gym. Thinking of getting my L1 cert, make a little extra money. What do you think? 

Steve  
  


**james barnes** <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>  
_to Steve Rogers_ <srogers212@gmail.com>

steve!!!!!

i can’t even imagine the kind of shit people get up to in a regular gym. almost as bad as the shit they get up to in crossfit. it's a thing here, too, i see guys trying to do it in the “bodybuilding” part of the модун but you gotta have bumper plates to do it and they don’t and it just looks bad. save yourself, steven. also get straight A’s i guess i mean one of us has to be a genius it might as well be you.

because you won’t let the fuck up about the cabbage lemme tell you about щи. natalia made it once because she and i both want you to drop the cabbage thing or maybe she just wanted to make it for me or something or wanted me to make somethign that wasn't an egg dish. anyway. she made this and it’s like 99% cabbage and it’s soup. i ate cabbage soup, if that gets you off or whatever.

bucky

 

* * *

 

 

There is a thirteen-hour time difference between New York and Yakutsk, which Steve finds out only after he’s initiated the Skype call.

When Bucky answers, he’s sitting in a dark room with the light from the laptop distorting his features. His eyes look like someone drew them in with charcoal, smudged them carefully with a finger until there’s nothing left but two black holes.

He smiles, and the artificial light catches his eyes, makes them glitter. Steve is a little unnerved by the whole thing, but raises a hand in greeting. His vocal cords are cemented in place, and he can’t work up enough energy to make them move.

“ _Hey Steve_.”

Bucky’s voice comes in before his mouth moves. The video feed breaks up briefly, little squares of green flickering in and out before settling again.

“ _How’s stuff?_ ” It’s like talking to someone through a tin can, or playing an unsuccessful game of telephone. There’s no string for Steve to pull taut, nothing to improve the signal.

He is very far away.

“Hey, Buck,” he croaks. Maybe his voice will be distorted, too, over miles and miles of ocean and land and across more countries than he can probably name off the top of is head. He clears his throat, focuses on the tug of the muscles in his face until he’s making something that approximates a smile. “Stuff’s…”

The words die in his throat, and why is it so much harder to say things than to write them down? His mouth moves but he doesn’t hear anything coming out. He thinks of Bucky in the park, in the kitchen, in the doorway just feet away from where he’s sitting. 

“ _Great story, Steve,_ ” he says wryly. Might say wryly. His features are one big blur, a mixture of the shadows and poor video quality that another Steve might tease him over but this one can’t.

This Steve laughs a little. Something loosens in his chest; not enough to be comfortable but just enough that he can breathe again. He feels the tension bleeding out of his shoulders, his hands relaxing out of their fists.

“Want me to tell it again?”

“ _Shit, yeah. Maybe draw me a couple pictures or something, too. Really brings out the vivid detail._ " 

He hopes the camera’s quality is good enough to pick up the gesture he makes in return.

 

* * *

 

 **Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Bucky,

Sorry I haven’t had a chance to e-mail you. School picked up, and I’ve had tests every couple days. Maybe taking 20 credits wasn’t a good idea after all. My classes are interesting. A lot of prerequisites right now but I get to take an interesting physiology class and I’ve never taken that before. Now I have the privilege of knowing what muscles are sore whenever Fury goes on one of his high volume kicks LOL. 

How is everything? I bet it’s pretty cold. I read the Wikipedia page, it looks like you’re in for a rough winter. There was a chart on the page, I could send it to you if you want? Except you can probably look at it yourself. How is learning Russian going?

Say hi to the penguins for me,

Steve  
  


**Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Hey, Bucky!

Hope you’re enjoying your first Thanksgiving out of the country! I know they don’t do anything for it in Russia but I wanted to know if maybe you and Natalia had done anything. Maybe we could Skype sometime soon? At a normal time, though. Like when the sun is out (for you). Just let me know when you’re free :-)

Stay warm,

Steve

 

 **Steve Rogers** <srogers212@gmail.com>  
_to james barnes_ <bucketbarnes@gmail.com>

Merry Christmas, Bucky!

Mom kept saying I should send you something but I don’t know what your address is or how long it would take to get there. I hope you’re having fun and you get the day off! What’s Natalia doing? Are you staying with your coach still or are you living in the sports complex? Let me know if you want to Skype whenever you have time! :-)

Happy holidays,

Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- nothing is more upsetting to me than people who use smileys with noses. have you ever seen that "here comes a special boy" comic? because it's on par with that, for making me legitimately sad.  
> \- Yakutsk is actually very warm in the summer, with highs in the 90s and 100s (Fahrenheit, _sorry_ ) but also gets v cold in the winter, like their temperature range is ridiculous also they have a mammoth museum? and a beach that looks kind of fun.  
> \- The Modun Sports Complex is a real building, and also apparently has like some kind of dorm or living quarters set up? The actual complex does _not_ have a setup for olympic weightlifting but since all the other facts about eels are correct i figured i could modify this a little bit.  
>  \- I am 99.9% sure it is not customary for athletes to live with their coaches, nor is it customary for them to live in the sports complexes or the gyms.  
> \- [bumper plates](http://www.quest-nutrition.com/store/ProdImages/BumperPlates_Black_Set.JPG) are super important in weightlifting and crossfit because you need to be able to drop the bar. If you drop a bar with metal plates you can hurt someone or mess up the equipment (which is expensive). They come in black, like the ones in the link, or you can get colorful ones like you see in weightlifting (the colors correspond with the number of kilos, so green is 10, yellow is 15, blue is 20, red is 25).
> 
> to make up for the lack of weightlifting stuff, [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-vCKkgaDwc) is a really cool interview with mohamed ehab which i probably linked in an earlier chapter but i felt like doing it again. he keeps posting on instagram and tagging it tokyo2020.


	17. sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **four-ish years later [2014]**

There is a reason Tony doesn’t allow Steve to come anywhere near the Crossfit programming despite his L1 and L2 certifications. If it were up to him, every workout would involve a quick max-out session followed by a lengthy nap. Exertion and recovery, with no extra energy expended in-between. Steve doesn’t see a problem with it.

Tony thinks he’s disgusting.

End result: Steve isn’t allowed anywhere near the programming. Tony isn’t allowed to make fun of the fact that Steve gets breathless attempting to run 600 meters. It’s a fair trade, all things considered.

That doesn’t mean that either of those things _don’t_ happen, but it was nice of Nick to try to intervene.

Tony Stark’s scrawl is barely legible at the best of times, and writing on the whiteboard on the crossfit side of the gym brings out the worst qualities his writing has to offer. Numbers look like letters. Letters look like squiggly lines trying to be horizontal and vertical at the same time. The amount of time Steve has to spend deciphering the WOD so he can run the afternoon class should be a workout in and of itself. Decoding for time.

When he finally manages to decipher whatever chicken scratch Tony uses as an excuse for handwriting, his hand itches to grab the eraser and go to town. “Ralph” looks about as bad as it sounds, the kind of WOD that would be much better if it were replaced with, say, a big multi-colored sign that said “max-out Friday”. 

“I don’t pay you to program,” Nick says, doing what he does best (appearing out of thin air just to give Steve a heart attack). “I pay you to coach. _So coach_.”

The sarcastic “ _yessir_ ” dies on his tongue, because Nick isn’t _wrong_ , is the thing. Tony, for all his terrible ideas and very _wrong_ perspectives on physical fitness and the importance of the Olympic lifts in a workout, is the CF-L4 coach, not him.

 _You could be,_ his brain reminds him. _If you, y’know, did Crossfit_.

 _If_ being the operative word.

The class is larger than usual. A sea of new faces when he can’t even remember half the names of the athletes he sees on a regular basis. Part of him recognizes that he should be happy that they’re gaining more publicity (sending an athlete to Regionals can do that to you). Mostly, though, it just makes him feel a little like he feels before every big meet. A little shaky, a little like he wants to throw up.

He leads the class through the usual warmup: PVC pass-throughs, shoulder dislocations if someone needs them, lunges across the room and back, crawling push-ups. Some of the athletes glance at the board and, after careful consideration, warm-up their arms a little more.

The skill-work is where things start to fall apart, but only a little bit.

What the board _says_ is “hang snatches for 5x5 with 50%”.

What Steve ends up doing is spending 15 minutes instructing confused crossfitters armed with PVC pipes.

“Nonono, you gotta shrug _up_ ,” Steve says, demonstrating the movement again. “Okay, now you guys try.”

They try. 

It’s almost good enough. Honestly, what is Tony _teaching_ them? It’s a travesty, and here he is about to unleash this WOD on them, they aren’t even properly trained—

“No offense, Steve,” Sharon’s tones belie her words. Full offense. Neverending offense. “But when are we gonna _lift_.” 

The ‘you asshole’ goes unsaid.

There are five minutes left in the twenty minutes set aside for technique work. The WOD should take no more than forty minutes, if that. Steve looks helplessly at the PVC pipe in his hands, does a shrug that’s nowhere near the explosive snatch pull he was trying to teach the athletes only moments before.

“Next time?”

Sharon looks a little like if there were a fighting pit nearby she would willingly invite him to meet her in it. For all that he likes Sharon, for all that he still considers her an integral part of his friend group, he would gladly rendezvous in said pit. 

Feeling himself withering under the force of her glare, he presses the little button on the remote that controls the timer. The piercing _beep_ echoes in the otherwise quiet space. Somewhere on the weightlifting side someone drops an empty barbell.

Steve would also like to be dropped onto a wooden platform.

“Your uh,” he clears his throat even though he doesn’t need to. “Your workout is ‘Ralph’; eight deadlifts, sixteen burpees, three rope climbs, and a 600 meter run. Four rounds for uh… time. Rx weight is 250 pounds, 165 pounds for girls.” 

There’s a flurry of activity after that, crossfitters running to grab their favorite bar, loading comically large bumper plates. Steve wanders through the chaos, noting the weights with some trepidation. If they can’t even execute a perfectly easy snatch pull how can they be expected to deadlift properly? Who taught these people?

The answer is, in most cases, Tony Stark. 

But then, of course, the question is “ _who taught Tony Stark?_ ” and Steve isn’t really sure he wants to answer that question to preserve his ego more than anything.

He feels a little like a harried retail worker in a children’s department. Watching as his displays are quickly and efficiently dismantled, leaving him to stand amid the wreckage. Asking where their parents are. Sobbing brokenly into a light blue onesie.

Sharon hip checks him on her way to the bar. She’s carrying a 45 pound plate in her arms. 

“C’mon coach, time to go.”

One push of the little button on the remote and the timer gives a _beep_ that signals the beginning of their countdown. 

_five_

_four_

_three_

_two_

_one_

They begin in silence before Steve belatedly remembers to push a second button on the remote that activates the seemingly endless Spotify playlist of nameless heavy metal. He may have heard some Zeppelin once, but it never happened again so he’s not entirely sure.

The clanging of barbells dies out as one by one the crossfitters finish their deadlifts only to segue immediately into burpees. One of the new members, a man in obscenely bright zebra print leggings, is already on his way to the rope climbs. 

“Remember to get up all the way!”

“Great jumping!”

“Uhh… nice job… _you_!”

As Zebra Pants races out of the gym, Steve moves toward the door. Other people are finishing up their rope climbs and soon it will be his job to stand at the door. A sentinel-slash-cheerleader. And also a doorstop. 

“You got this!” He sounds like he should be yelling from a megaphone while seated in a golf cart. 

As the last of the crossfitters leave the gym for their first of four 600 meter runs, Steve catches Zebra Pants sprinting back in his direction. He steps to the right, narrowly avoiding the man who absolutely refuses to slow down as he begins his second round.

“Nice job, Sharon, keep up the good work!” 

Sharon sprints back behind a few of the others, shoots him a wink and a thumbs up as she passes by. Steve remains by the door until everyone is inside again.

“On your left!” 

Well, almost everyone.

Zebra Pants is out the door again, a blur of black and white stripes with purple trim.

 

* * *

 

Tony programs “Grace” on Wednesday.

That is also, incidentally, the day that Steve decides that he will do everything in his power to bring Zebra Pants over from the Crossfit side. 

To the knowledgeable athlete, “Grace” is a frantic rush to the finish line. Not quite a 2000-meter row, not quite “Fran” but something a little less. Something painful, something that leaves a person gasping, but just easy enough to keep someone from throwing up all over their shoes. 

To the uninformed viewer, “Grace” is a disaster of flailing arms and legs with clanking bars as the soundtrack. It’s directionless, ten or twelve or fifteen people all marching to the slightly different beat of a frantic drummer.

Some people take breaks, either to coat their hands liberally in chalk or to catch their breath. They put their hands behind their head or hinge at the hips to place them on their knees while they breathe. 

In the whole time that Steve watches, Zebra Pants—who is, to Steve’s delight, wearing a pair of leggings with flames on them—doesn’t stop. The ground around him is a clean, little circle. He hasn’t chalked up once.

The absence of chalk on its own isn’t what gets Steve’s attention. From his vantage point he can’t see any sign that Zebra Pants has broken a sweat. His chest isn’t heaving with the effort of stringing together all 30 clean and jerks, his bar isn’t adding to the cacophony of ten other barbells slamming into the earth. The more Steve watches the more he notices that Zebra Pants, as fast as he’s moving, doesn’t seem to be exerting more effort than he absolutely has to be. If he blinks, he misses the clean. Another blink, and he misses the push jerk that sends the bar overhead. Everything about Zebra Pants is fast and controlled.

“Rude.” 

Steve turns to find Clint watching from the other side of the entryway to the weightlifting half of the gym. His feet are firmly planted on the cheap tile of Their Side, although his shoulders are coming dangerously close to entering Crossfit territory.

“Puts you t’shame,” he replies. Clint makes a strangled noise beside him.

“Excuse _you_ —“

“You’re not—“

“Listen _I_ could do that if I wanted—“ 

Steve likes to think that it’s his derisive snort that interrupts Clint, but more likely it’s the fact that the music—AC/DC, if Steve’s not mistaken—has reached Peak Annoying Volume. Clint’s mouth keeps moving, but the words never reach Steve’s ears.

“Sorry?” Steve cups a hand around his ear, motions exaggeratedly to the speakers mounted in the corners of the room

Clint stares at him, and it’s the only warning Steve gets before he gets punched hard in the arm as Clint returns to the other half of the gym.

Tony—because of course it’s Tony—only lowers the music to a dull roar as the first triumphant _crash_ of the bars signals the first athlete's completion of the workout.

Unsurprisingly, Zebra Pants is the first. He doesn’t so much ‘throw’ as he lets it fall from the top of the jerk, turning away before it’s even hit the ground. The militant weightlifter in Steve cringes at the blatant disregard for rules, shifts his feet in the direction of the other side of the gym. 

“You got this, c’mon!”

Coaching Crossfit—and watching— is like elementary school all over again. It’s standing in a crowded cafeteria and noticing a place open at a table full of strangers and not knowing what to say. Like the words are there on his tongue but they can’t quite get out. Even standing as he is, far away from the action, with nobody looking in his direction, he feels his vocal cords stutter a little. Anticipating his poor attempts at encouragement.

“Just a few more!”

If Steve is the first grader with the lunch tray, Zebra Pants is the kid who sits down like he belongs there and nobody questions it.

“Use your legs!”

Zebra Pants cheers like he lifts; every bit of his attention is focused on driving the remaining athletes to the finish. He claps his hands, asks how many someone has left before counting down for her, each clap punctuating the number.

“Don’t put the bar down _don’t put it down c’mon_!”

The energy is palpable, and all of it emanates from Zebra Pants.

Steve doesn’t know what compels him to do it. Doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until the bass of some nameless song is rattling through his bones. He has just enough time to vacillate wildly between _Nick must be in, thank god_ and _when did I get over here_ , before—

“You mind?”

He’s on the ground, foam roller wedged under the small of his back. Every few seconds Zebra Pants shifts, little movements as he tries to work out whatever tightness wormed its way into his muscles.

“You’re blocking the, uh… everything.” Zebra Pants makes a vague motion, looking at Steve upside-down.

Steve hears himself make a sound somewhere between “confused Goofy” and “startled yelp”.

Zebra Pants grins at him, still very much upside-down.

“I’m just joking around,” he says, and something in Steve unwinds a little bit.

Just enough for him to properly embarrass himself.

“Youshouldcomeoverthere.”

Zebra Pants’ smile falters. He tilts his head sideways, a slow roll along the ground. “Wanna run that by me again, Steve?” 

Of course Zebra Pants knows his name. Steve doesn’t know Zebra Pants’ name, but Zebra Pants knows his name. Of course.

It couldn’t possibly take him any longer to realize the intent behind Zebra Pants’ words, and when he does he wants to wander away with his head in his hands. With a swift prayer to the powers that be that none of his feelings are showing on his face, he gathers what little dignity he’s retained and tries again. 

“You should come. Over there.” After a pregnant pause, he clears his throat. Tries to break the confused silence (and where did the music go? Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?) by talking some more.

“To the. The weightlifting side.”

Zebra Pants finally rolls himself off the foam roller and stands up.

“You make it sound like something outta Star Wars.”

Steve’s floundering. This wasn’t what he expected, even if he came in without any expectations. At a loss, Steve throws caution to the winds, hopes that whatever comes out of his mouth doesn’t completely turn Zebra Pants off the idea of weightlifting. They could use someone like him.

“Who says it’s not?”

Nailed it.

Zebra Pants gives him a pitying look. Puts a hand on his shoulder “You’re just _not_ a good Sith, Steve, I’m sorry.” 

“Why not?”

“I mean for one thing, no people skills. None. Zero. Absolutely nil. You gotta get an HR person or something ‘cause your recruitment techniques? Embarrassing.”

“But—“

“Second, your outfit’s all wrong. See these?” He motions to his leggings. Up close, Steve can see that the flames are actually a bunch of little orange and red birds. “Perfect Sith. Sith chic.”

Steve can feel himself getting flustered. “I’d make a good Sith!”

“Steve.” Zebra Pants puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Again. “No. You wouldn’t.”

Who is this guy, anyway? Who does he think he is?

“Listen, I didn’t come over here t’be insulted.”

“ _But_ you stayed.” 

He has him there. Steve heaves a sigh. “Yeah, _I guess_.” 

They head in the direction of the cubbies where the crossfitters keep their gear. The majority of the athletes have dissipated, only a handful staying to mess around on the rings and practice their gymnastics. One of them goes for a muscle up and fails. Steve’s shoulders ache in sympathy.

“So…”

Zebra Pants reaches into a cubby with a little piece of masking tape right on the top shelf. Steve leans in like he’s reaching into one of the other cubbies, trying to be inconspicuous about the fact that he’s looking at the name "Sam" written in red and yellow.

“Really?”

Steve pulls back so fast he nearly hits his head on the top of the cubby. “ _What?”_

Zebra Pants—Sam—looks at him incredulously. “ _Really_?”

“What?”

“You couldn’t just ask?”

“Ask _what_?”

“C’mon.”

“What?”

“You know what you did. I _saw_ you. You think you’re smooth? I _invented_ smooth—“ 

“ _What_?” 

Steve is a terrible liar. Sam gives him a Look so intense that Steve thinks he knows. After engaging in brief a staring contest, Sam throws up his hands in defeat. 

“ _Fine_. I’m not reading into this. I’m not. I’m gonna outlift your ass, and _that_ ,” he points dramatically in Steve’s direction, “is how it’s gonna be.”

“That’s how it’s gonna be?”

Sam heaves his gym bag over his shoulder, narrowly avoiding Steve’s chest. “That’s how it’s gonna be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i'm not saying every crossfit is the same but i've literally never been in a crossfit gym where they weren't playing some kind of weird metal or something during a workout.  
> \- WOD stands for "workout of the day", "Grace" is 30 135 lbs clean and jerks for time (135 lbs being the prescribed men's weights, I think the women's weights are like 95 or something). I've done "Grace" before, it's not actually as bad as a 2000 meter row, because I didn't cough for 3 days straight after "Grace".  
> \- in weightlifting competitions, you have to follow the bar down with your hands when you drop it but in crossfit no such rule exists, which is why Steve is cringing.  
> \- [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKcnpJSAsbo) is a muscle-up in slow motion.  
> \- I don't know anything about Star Wars  
> \- I'm sorry for time-jumping so much, bc I know everyone wanted 5 more chapters of Steve sending sad e-mails to Bucky's now defunct gmail account.


	18. seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pizza isn't paleo.

On his rest days when he’s in-between Crossfit classes, he lounges around at the front desk and watches Hookgrip videos until the lifters all blur together in one dramatic frame-by-frame replay. Each one has their own style, jerking their head back or not, setting up low before rising up, mouth open in a silent scream. They pop the bar off their shoulders, one drawn-out oscillation, or they don’t. They breathe in, or they don’t. 

The slow motion video catches each part of the lift, from the minute the bar breaks from the floor to the second the lifter drives up their elbows to dive under. The video catches even the smallest changes; the way someone’s back arches in the pull, the bar missing their head by inches, their wrists bending under the weight of the bar.

If someone were to capture Sam Wilson, Steve wonders how much their slow motion would miss.

Sam approaches the bar like an old friend. He runs his hand over the knurling, chalk settling in its wake. When he sets up he ducks his head low, forehead nearly resting on the smooth center, like he’s telling a secret.

The first pull is Hookgrip video slow, with none of the distortion. The soft _snapsnapsnap_ of knurling against red and white-striped leggings is unnaturally sharp in the quiet training room.

Steve thinks, absurdly, of a bird of prey swooping in for the kill when Sam starts his second pull. It’s less a graceful arc and more of a ruthless attack, vicious and clean and over in a millisecond. One second he’s pulling and the next he’s under, arms locked out with absolutely zero give. 

And he does it the next.

And the next.

Until Steve’s getting motion sickness just watching him, triple after triple like it’s nothing, like it’s 75 kg made out of hollow plastic. He thinks of his own sets, his lengthy breaks in-between. 

“It’s the running,” Sam says, noting Steve’s incredulous stare. “Y’know, when you move your feet real fast.”

Steve snorts. “I do plenty of cardio.“ 

“Walking to the chalk ‘n back doesn’t count.”

“Sam I literally _majored_ in exercise science.”

Sam’s expression morphs into something more appropriate for a person who just unintentionally ran into someone else’s car and drove away. 

“ _And_?” 

“And I know what cardio is!”

“Steve.” His tone is gentle, like that hand on his shoulder when Sam told him he wouldn’t be a good Sith. The ‘you’re a nice guy and I feel bad for you so I’m gonna let you down _easy_ ’ voice.

Steve feels a smile trying to sneak onto his face. Forcing it back is a monumental effort. “ _Sam_.”

“You get winded walking up the stairs.” Steve opens his mouth to deny Sam’s allegations, but Sam beats him to it. “Leaving the _subway_.”

He’s facing away from Steve, preparing for his next lift but Steve can practically hear the smug twist to Sam’s words, that look he gets when he wins an argument.

Except he _hasn’t_.

“That was _one time_.”

Sam executes a power clean so smooth it makes Steve want to scream. 

“That’s a damn lie and you know it.” He doesn’t even sound winded, the asshole. The jerk is so fast the bar might as well be empty.

Steve approaches his bar, the sharp _crack_ of Sam’s shoes providing a soothing soundtrack. Some days, he doesn’t want anything except a driving bass line and the repetitive rhythms of electronic music. Other days he finds himself lifting while horns blare over the speakers and the drums beat out a rolling beat. He can’t time his lifts to “Sing Sing Sing”, but something about the sound of it clears the mental fog that sometimes settles mid-workout.

Other days, he just likes the clarity that comes with quiet. It throws everything into sharp relief, heightens the sensation of chalk settling on his skin and his heart beating against his ribcage. 

It also serves as a painful reminder of just how hard he breathes after a set of triples. He kicks the bar off his shoulders with a huff that’s much louder than he intended it to be. Sam raises an eyebrow at him as he cleans his bar up to set it into the rack. 

“You gonna need another minute?” The ‘ _I-told-you-so_ ’ doesn’t need to be said, but that doesn’t mean that Sam isn’t going to say it.

Steve takes another deep breath. It not quite holding up a ‘just gimme a minute’ finger, but it’s enough.

“C’mon, where’s that _cardiovascular endurance_?”

When did triples become cardio?

Steve’s next thought is: _maybe I need to go running_. He clears _that_ as quickly as possible, before it really has a chance to sink in. Running makes his shins hurt and his lungs ache in a way that’s too reminiscent of a childhood spent wheezing for him to really enjoy any of it.

“It’s there,” he replies at last, surprising himself with how out of breath he _doesn’t_ sound. “It’s just… it’s hiding. It’s hiding.”

“M _hm_.”

Sam sets up to start his squats. In the time Steve’s made it through one and a half of his four assigned lifts, Sam managed to get through all but one, accessory work notwithstanding. Short breaks and heavy weights, and he doesn’t look half as wiped out as Steve feels.

Steve takes a deep breath and approaches his bar for another set.

 

* * *

 

 

“Does _this_ ,” Sam waves his hand in his general direction, indicating the half-pizza on his plate, the crust currently sticking out of his mouth, or both, “ever stop?”

Steve shrugs, chewing his crust like a cow might chew a long piece of grass. The shorter it gets, the closer it comes to falling out of his mouth completely but it’s a risk he’s willing to take. Sam’s incredulous expressions are worth it.

“Neh.” It’s as articulate as he can be, all things considered.

They’re stretched out on Steve’s couch, television playing a re-run of a show that he’s not sure either of them have seen. The pizza box sits between them, a reminder of what _could_ be, if—

“You’re a real piece of work,” Sam grumbles, shoving another piece of beef jerky into his mouth.

Steve feels the piece of crust landing on his sweatpants before he really registers that it left his mouth at all. The piece is replaced moments later when he tears into another slice of pizza.  
  
His most innocent expression in place, he nudges the pizza box over with one sock covered toe. “What?” 

Sam isn’t buying it, but then again he hadn’t expected him to. The look he gives Steve is a clear ‘ _what the fuck do you think you’re doing_ ’. When he notices the box sliding ever closer, the intensity of the look increases until Steve’s practically aspirating tomato and cheese, he’s trying so hard not to laugh. 

“You think you’re _real_ funny, huh.”

Steve has little pieces of pizza sitting in his lungs, he’s sure of it. That doesn’t stop him from asking the million-dollar question. 

“So… pizza’s not,” he gives himself a moment to giggle helplessly at his own hilarity, “it’s not…”

“Don’t say it. _Don’t even ask._ ” Sam shakes the bag of beef jerky threateningly in Steve’s direction.

Steve takes a second to collect himself, but it’s all for naught when his voice comes out about two times higher and about ten times more strangled than nature ever intended. “ _It’s not paleo?_ ”

Sam’s response is lost to him as he rocks back with the force of his laughter.

“You ever get tired of being so funny all the time?” Sam asks dryly.

Steve jams another piece of pizza crust into his mouth, sets his hand horizontally and waves it in a “so-so” motion. The television is a soft murmur, some period drama they turned on for background noise rather than actual entertainment.

Sam is still eyeing the remaining pieces. “No, really. You should go into comedy.”

The pizza box makes a soft _shush_ as it closes the remaining distance between itself and Sam. Steve tries to move his foot as quickly as possible but ends up nearly sending the pizza box off the couch in the process.

“It’s a gift. Eat the pizza, Sam, you’re making me sad.” 

“Oh, _I’m_ making _you_ sad?” Sam adjusts the pizza box so it’s not balanced precariously. He’s one longing look away from running his fingers lovingly over the cheese. Steve weighs the risks and benefits of asking he wants a minute alone with the food.

“I’m losing mass as we speak.”

If looks could kill.

“Well not all of us are bottomless, calorie-burning machines. You’re, what, a 94 now?”

Steve absolutely _does not preen_ at the assertion that he looks like he’s reached the 94 class. It’s a lot better than admitting the truth, at least until he actually has to put it out into the atmosphere. “An 85.”

“ _Are you shitting me_.” Sam nearly upsets the pizza box again in disgust. “And here _I am_ , trying to keep my ass around 77—y’know what? Go outside. Go sit outside. Think about your choices.”

It’s Steve’s turn to save the (now lukewarm) pizza. He returns the box to its rightful position between them. There are four pieces left and he wants at least one of them to join the others on his plate. He might not even finish them all, but it’s the thought that counts. 

“You know I can’t do that,” he says, the picture of businesslike solemnity.

“Take a lap. _Oh wait_.”

“Someone has to save you from yourself.”

Sam’s eyes narrow. “Don’t drag me into your bad choice spiral.” 

“It’s not a bad choice if it’s pizza” is what Steve says, but he’s not sure what all comes out around the soggy crust, tomato sauce, and cheese. All the olives are piled in the corner of his plate to be consumed later.

Sam looks nauseous, but his eyes slide back to the remaining slices after a few seconds.

“God damn it,” he grumbles. The bag of jerky crinkles as he shifts to grab a slice. It’s an oddly judgmental sound, all things considered. “God _damn_ it.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sam finds out he’s competing when he’s unofficially two days out. It’s a ‘friendly’ meet at a gym somewhere in Williamsburg, all athletes competing over the course of a day with beer available as soon as the athletes step off the platform.

Halfway through his sets of clean and jerks set at 70%, Nick calls him over to the “desk”. There’s a brief exchange, all hushed, angry tones and narrowed eyes, and then Sam’s back at his bar. 

He lifts and it’s not Hookgrip slow this time around; the bar isn’t his friend, isn’t something to be comforted. He lifts and it’s an attack, all brutal pulls and sharp, fast elbows. When Sam lifts, it’s like the last leg of a race.

Steve’s still slogging through his jerk triples at 80% when Sam wanders over to his platform, gym bag hanging over his shoulder. Someone in colorful, striped leggings has never looked so serious.

“You’re gonna count for me.”

Still trying to get his brain back on line after a difficult set, Steve takes a minute to gather some oxygen to formulate a response. His incredulous “ _wazzat?_ ” is about as good as it gets.

Sam’s expression doesn’t change. It’s a little pissed off, a lot determined. “You’re gonna count my attempts for me on Sunday.” Something twists at his mouth, not quite a smile but something that’s trying to be. “And when I win, you’re gonna buy me a box of doughnuts. For,” he takes a deep breath, settles a little, “for putting up with this shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- hookgrip is one of two of the really big weightlifting-centric photography companies. I'm actually partial to ATG because they do A+ competition coverage but Hookgrip does some good videos, too. [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYs-zAk4t4M) an example of their slow motion (Tatiana Kashirina, again. Because I'm weak).  
> \- Honestly the big inspiration for Sam's lifting style is [luis mosquera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPdW1EMU_dg) from Colombia. He competed in the Olympics but the guy is _bananas_ fast and just watch that entire video, especially his clean and jerk because I'm literally dying. Plus also, that adjustment before the jerk is just [insert 'ok' hand sign emoji like 500 times].  
>  \- I don't know why everything is always pizza, I think Steve just really likes it and I'm living vicariously through him bc I can't have dairy lmao.  
> \- Steve's on that 'forever bulking' train. Poor dude.
> 
> Also, thank you everyone who is still reading this and commenting and even people who aren't. I really appreciate it :)


	19. eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doughnut negotiations and Sam's first meet.

Steve’s phone pings for the second time in an hour. He picks up the device and thumbs over the broken screen in an aborted attempt at unlocking it before it pings again and a new notification slides into place under the other two.

_nro63 liked your video_

_nro63 liked your video_

_nro63 liked your video_  

He takes a glance at the clock at the far end of the warm-up room. They’re early ( _he’s_ early), but they still have another hour until weigh-in. Sam’s lounging in a folding chair looking nothing like the last lifter Steve tried to coach through a competition. His earbuds are in and his eyes are closed, completely closed off from the rest of the world and its distractions.

The phone pings again.

_nro63 liked your video_

This time he unlocks his phone, a quick _7004_ that he’s sure anyone and their grandmother can crack but it suits him just fine. Instagram opens without any further prompting, a bunch of little grey boxes appearing where the videos should be.

“ _First call for the 77 and 85 weigh-ins_ …”

Steve almost feels bad about rousing Sam from whatever meditative state he entered. Still, he pockets the phone and gives Sam’s shoulder a little shake.

“Hmm?” Sam blinks sleepily up at him, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He takes out one of his earphones and Steve can barely make out the sounds of a saxophone and a higher, male voice before the background noise drowns out the rest. Sam’s still looking at him, a little more awake than he was just moments before but still looking like he’s had the best nap of his life, slow and warm.

“They called for weigh-ins,” Steve says after clearing his throat. “You, uh, y’don’t have… to go over,” someone near them starts their warm-ups and Steve raises his voice a bit. 

Sam takes out the other earbud and stretches enough to make his back pop. “Wanna run that by me again?” 

“Weigh-ins’re happening now, if you wanna get ‘em over with. Y’know, so you can eat and stuff.”

Another few seconds of back popping and Sam unfolds himself from the chair. He slips his phone and his headphones into his pocket, the picture of calm. Like he hadn’t found out just days ago that he would be competing. Like he’s been competing all his life. Steve envies him. He _still_ can’t go a competition without feeling like he’s going to lose some portion of his breakfast on his way to the platform, hasn’t had an international meet go by where he’s felt totally at ease even in the relaxed environment of the training hall. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket. 

“—o?”

“Hm?”

“Where do I _go_?” 

There aren’t many places Sam _can_ go for weigh-ins, but Steve points him in the direction of the restrooms none-the-less. There’s only one other person in line, a blond kid who looks like he’s well on his way to making the 94 class. Sam gives Steve a little salute before turning around to cover the remaining distance, slipping in his earbuds as he walks. 

Steve returns to his spot against the wall. He can feel eyes on him, from coaches and lifters alike, as they filter back into the warm-up room to grab their things or claim a platform. He’s not decked out in his Team USA gear, but he might as well be. Suddenly, the FBC hoodie feels like a little too much. He fiddles with the zipper until his phone vibrates in his pocket. 

_nro63 liked your video_

_nro63 liked your video_

This time, Steve gets all the way to the Instagram notification page. He takes a good look at the thumbnails attached to the videos that nro63 ‘liked’.

They’re older clips. One is of his PR clean and jerk from the meet that qualified him for the American Open, ending just before he collapses off-platform (mercifully). The next is a compilation of lifts filmed on one of Clint’s fancy cameras, the lifts that earned him a place in the Pan American Games. He was just a few kilos shy of the all-time American record in the total, and just barely lifted enough to earn him first place. Not his best meet, but definitely not his worst.

“76.8! Bring on the doughnuts, Rogers,” Sam calls as he crosses the warm-up room. A number of lifters look curiously in his direction, either because he’s in the same direction as the source of the noise or because of the word ‘doughnuts’, Steve isn’t sure.

Sam is still standing in front of him, hand outstretched. “C’mon, man, don’t hold out on me.”

“Not a good idea, you get ‘em after you lift. All the doughnuts you want.” 

A less-familiar listener might think Steve just stole Sam’s beloved dog and demanded immortality as ransom. Sam looks absolutely devastated, pulls out all the stops including eyes so big and soulful that Steve’s already halfway toward hating himself for the words that came out of his mouth.

“Don’t think that just because you make a couple’a faces—“

The faces in question intensify. Steve feels his resolve crumbling.

“C’mon, you don’t wanna crash halfway through the clean and—don’t—don’t make that face, I’m not… _c’mon_ ,” he whines, seconds away from stomping his foot.

“Cough ‘em up.”

“You don’t want me to _cough ‘em up_ , Sam, that’s so gross that’s _the most gross_ don’t _look at me like that_.”

The look doesn’t subside, but it seems to have plateaued in intensity. The announcer makes another call for weigh-ins. Somewhere in the main room, a lifter makes a lift to a round of applause.

Neither of them backs down for what feels like an eternity, but in reality is only a handful of minutes. Just long enough for Steve’s phone to ping again ( _nro63 liked your video_ ) and for him to pull a pink box out of the gym bag he brought along ‘just in case’. He’s barely had a chance to stand up all the way before Sam’s reaching for the box, fingers flexing and unflexing like little claws in a toy machine. 

“C’mon, man I gotta warm up just gimme like _one_ it doesn’t even have to have sprinkles on it,” he pauses a moment, rethinks his choices, then amends, “Steve I lied _so hard_ just now. Gimme the sprinkles one.”

Steve peeks inside the box and shuts the lid just as quickly, too fast for Sam to get a look inside. “What if I want the sprinkles one?”

Sam looks like he’s seconds away from reinstating the look. “You better not be touching _any_ of those doughnuts.”

“I _bought_ these—“

“Yeah, and I _earned_ these. Gimme the sprinkles.”

“But—“

“I’m gonna make the face, Steve.”

“I didn’t—I _bought_ —“

“Just the one with the sprinkles. Nice ‘n slow.” 

Steve reluctantly turns the box around. 

“ _—final reminder that weigh-ins for the 77 and 85 kilo class are underway—_ “

He lifts the lid off the box as slowly as he can. The scent of sweet, fried dough hits his nose before anything else. Then, it’s just a matter of looking at Sam’s face.

Sam, who looks simultaneously like Christmas came a day early and like the biggest present under the tree was actually just a matryoshka doll of smaller boxes.

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Look, all I’m saying is _I get_ —“

“You’re lucky I’m still letting you hold the _box_ with the shit you just pulled,” Sam gripes, plucking a doughnut with sprinkles from the box of its nearly identical brothers and sisters. “Don’t fuck around with doughnuts, Steve.”

 

* * *

 

Sam maintains his composure right up until he takes the platform. They call his name and he walks up like he’s been lifting his entire life. The only thing that gives him away is the way his hands shake when he grabs the chalk. Steve tries to think of something encouraging to say, something that will hype him up and keep him out of his head, but the words don’t come. He’s never been much of a coach, anyway.

He steps on to silence, the polite applause having died just seconds before, and for a second he just stands.

From where he’s waiting off to the side, near the announcer’s table, Steve can’t see Sam’s face. Can’t tell if his eyes are open or closed, if he’s frozen with sudden stage fright or simply finding a point to fix his eyes on. There’s 90 kg loaded on the bar. Steve knows it’s going to fly up, powered by pure adrenaline and nothing else. Strength doesn’t exist for the first attempt.

He powers it, but just barely, and it’s met with excited applause. Sam lets the bar drop, looks like he isn’t quite sure what to do now that the bar’s back on the platform, and then hurries off. 

The next lift goes much the same way.

And then— 

“Gimme a hundred.” He’s standing with his arms crossed, obscuring the FBC patch that Steve knows for a fact Fury hand sewed onto that damn singlet. He thinks of a blank stare, fingers tapping out a staccato beat.

“Gimme a hundred,” Sam repeats, eyes fixed like he’s looking _at_ and not _through_. The seconds tick down. 

And Steve says, “yeah, okay.”

Sam doesn’t power 100 kg, but he certainly makes it look easy enough.

Off to the side, Steve’s phone _ping_ s, lost in the roar of the crowd.

Between the snatch and the clean and jerk, Sam resumes his meditation (napping?) behind his platform. His earbuds are in, his eyes are closed, and he looks like nothing can touch him. The doughnut box sits discarded to the side, half-full only at Steve’s insistence that Sam wait until the competition is over to eat absolutely every last sprinkled doughnut. After some cajoling, Sam had grudgingly accepted the peanut butter and jelly substitute, taking bites as if to say ‘ _how could you do this to me_ ’ before closing his eyes. 

Steve might not be a good coach, but at least he knows how to fuel someone mid-meet. His own sandwich sits next to him, discarded in favor of something from a food truck outside. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that it was unironically named _The Paleo Wagon_ , pushing his cauliflower rice around his plate like that will some how make it more palatable.

“ _A reminder that the clean and jerk portion of the competition will begin in five minutes…_ ” 

This time, Sam rouses himself all on his own. He takes a final bite of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and begins his warm-ups with the bar. There’s a ways to go before he’s even close to being on deck, let alone in the hole, and Steve keeps a careful eye on the clock to make sure he doesn’t overwork himself in the meantime.

Sam sits down again, rolling his shoulders as if shaking something off. He watches the other athletes with curiosity, taking in the different ways they prepare for their attempts. 

Steve nudges him with his toe. “If you’re gonna sit there you better put on some pants or something.” He clears his throat and makes like he’s looking around for the sweatpants Sam had deposited somewhere in their pile of stuff. “It gets cold.”

Sam makes a noise of agreement, but doesn’t make any move to get up. He’s already wearing Steve’s hoodie over the top of his singlet, and looks like he’s ready to settle into the warmth that it provides regardless of whether his legs freeze or not.

After a few minutes, he looks up at Steve. “You gonna find me some pants or what?” 

It takes a couple minutes of digging, but when Steve unearths the sweatpants he has no qualms about throwing them at Sam’s head.

 

* * *

 

It takes two misses and one spectacularly executed make at 132 kg for Sam to secure first, and when he takes the podium he looks almost as shocked as Steve feels. Shocked, and exhausted, and confused. When the head judge approaches him with a medal and doesn’t let him put it over his head on his own, it takes him a second to understand what all is happening. It takes a few seconds of hushed explanation, but finally he bends at the waist and allows the older gentleman to slip it over his head, the gold catching the light.

Steve tries to catch as many potato-quality pictures as he can with his cell phone, but doesn’t stress too much. Somewhere in the crowd he hears the _clickwhrrrr_ of Clint’s much more professional setup and knows that it’s only a matter of time before the pictures make their way to Instagram and Clint’s website for the public’s perusal. Sam’s still standing on the podium, arms around the second and third place athletes with a smile so big it looks like his face might crack with the force of it.

The announcer’s voice rings out above the buzz of voices and the clatter of metal chairs. Steve, who is already halfway toward the warm-up room, comes to a dead stop.

“ _Sam Wilson, is credited with a 232 clean & jerk and has qualified for the American Open_. _Congratulations, Sam Wilson!_ ”

His phone pings again, but he doesn’t hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [casually doesn't update for like 3 weeks]  
> [comes back and updates twice in one weekend]
> 
>  _anyway_ , please enjoy my subtlety (which we've all established is about as 'subtle' as seventeen bulls running around inside a china shop).
> 
> \- i've never actually been good at following this but once you've worked off a lot of adrenaline in the snatch, you tend to get a little cold and shaky before the clean and jerk so it's nice to get warm however you can.  
> \- idk where Steve gets his info but fast digesting sugars can be super helpful esp. in a meet? like obviously if you've been cutting weight you gotta get a lot of food in you so you don't, say, pass out when you're lifting but sugar can be super helpful as far as replenishing some of that energy. bad job, steve.  
> \- there are paleo food trucks.  
> \- I don't have any cool informative videos but here's one of [mart seim](https://www.instagram.com/p/BLJRYFMgrKb/?taken-by=martseim) strict pressing 140 kg (~308 lbs) for almost 10 reps because it's super cool.


	20. nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The American Open, seasonal drink appreciation

Winter doesn’t creep into the city so much as Steve wakes up one morning and suddenly he’s wrapping himself in as many layers as he can and wondering where he placed his warmest gloves (on top of the refrigerator). The air is cool with just enough moisture to make walking to the subway uncomfortable. As he walks he commends himself for thinking to wear sweatpants, although perhaps an extra layer would have been more appropriate.

Stepping into FBC is like walking into a very warm sweater, if the sweater was playing Led Zeppelin at an hour that does not necessitate “The Lemon Song”. Steve tosses his gym bag behind the “desk” and tries desperately to regain the feeling in his fingers and toes. Tony yells something that might be a greeting, but his voice gets lost in the background noise. Steve raises a hand in greeting nonetheless.

Despite the dreadful weather and the fact that it’s 8 AM on a Saturday, Clint wanders into the gym. He’s almost on time, which is a feat in and of itself. The reason for his timeliness makes itself apparent the closer he gets—Clint’s double fisting coffee, each from a different coffee shop. 

“You ever worry that you’re gonna have a heart attack?” Steve asks when he’s close enough to be heard over the music. Clint takes a moment to process his question, either due to the early hour or the sheer volume of the background noise making it harder to parse out what Steve is saying.

“Nah, I figure the more I drink the closer I am to immortality.” Clint brings a festive Starbucks cup to his lips and Steve catches a whiff of some peppermint something-or-other. Considering the fact that he’s seen Clint drink day-old coffee he found in his cubby, the holiday drink is a little unexpected. 

Realizing that Steve’s still looking at him, Clint offers him the second cup. “It probably doesn’t totally taste like ass,” he says, taking another sip of the peppermint drink. Steve takes the cup after some careful consideration and pops off the lid to take a tiny sip.

“Pretty good, right?” Clint asks around the rim of his coffee cup. The music has been turned down, replaced with Tony’s too-fast instructions to the few souls who braved the elements just to get a good workout in. Steve takes a step back, establishing a comfortable distance between himself and Clint again. The smell of peppermint is replaced by chalk and rubber. 

“You really sold it,” Steve deadpans, taking another small sip. It’s sweet, a blend of chocolate and mint that’s not as Christmassy as the drink in Clint’s other hand.

Clint holds his hand out in an impatient gesture to have his beverage returned to him. “ _C’mon_ I never said you could drink the whole thing.” 

Steve withholds the beverage like he’s going to take another drink. “You don’t wanna check your cubby for an old cup or something? I’ll babysit this for you, go ahead.” 

“That was _one_ time I feel so attacked, I—“

The door opens with a soft _swoosh_ and with the newcomer comes a burst of cold air that raises goosebumps on Steve’s arms. All heating aside, Steve regrets his decision to wear a t-shirt as his final layer, even if it _is_ his lucky, most comfortable tee.

“Jesus Christ it’s like a fuckin’ blizzard out there I’m never going outside again you’re gonna have to get the uber guy to drive through the building—You got me coffee?” The bundle of purple stops, eyes the two cups in Clint’s hand, and then grabs the one with the Starbucks logo. “If this is a PSL, Barton I swear—“ She—because there’s really only one person it could be—shakes the container threateningly in his direction. A few drops try to escape their paper prison but only succeed in sloshing over the hole in the top of the lid.

“What if it is? It’s not _for_ you—hey!” But Kate’s already mid-sip. After some careful consideration she makes a face and hands the cup back to him. 

“When did _you_ get all fancy?” 

Clint’s expression turns from one of confusion to something sour. Kate ignores the force of his glare in favor of unwinding her scarf and wriggling out of her puffy coat. Her coat, which, Steve notes, completely refutes her assertion that it’s a blizzard outside.

“Can’t a man order a couple goddamn holiday drinks without everyone getting all suspicious?” 

“’Tis the season, I guess,” Kate responds with a shrug. “Gimme the other one, I wanna give it a try don’t make me take it from you.” She holds out her hand, the gesture so _Clint_ that Steve has a fleeting sensation of déjà vu.

“I paid good money for this!”

“And _I’m_ paying good money to let you coach me, just lemme have the coffee.” 

“It’ll stunt your growth!”

“ _I’m done growing_ ,” Kate growls. Her gym bag hits the floor with a muffled _thump_.

The timer rings signaling the beginning of the workout and an immediate return to music so loud that none of them can hear what the other is saying. Steve watches the vague outlines of crossfitters jogging by, the windows already foggy with condensation. 

A startled “ _hey!_ ” drags his attention back to the other two standing next to him just in time to watch Kate triumphantly wrestle the second coffee cup from Clint’s grasp. This time she forgoes the controlled swig, jumping right in with a gulp that Steve knows she regrets as soon as she takes it.

Kate might say ‘ _what the fuck_ ’, or maybe she just mouths it. The important thing is that Clint’s coffee is returned to him, diminished but ultimately safe.

 

* * *

 

 

The onslaught of notifications has slowed, possibly because nro63 reached the end of his instagram, or because they’re exercising some restraint when it comes from going through every video and selfie he’s ever posted. He hopes it’s the former, but nro63 proves him wrong every time his phone pings with a new notification. 

This was a particularly long spell. He’s posted to instagram, a few videos leading up to the American Open, a picture of Sam eating a comically large slice of pizza with a caption that’s just a bunch of red 100 emojis, a funny gym meme, but no sign of nro63. 

The notifications come to mind as he’s preparing to take a selfie in the bathroom mirror, the white of his Team USA singlet seeming all the brighter in the surprisingly good lighting.

It’s a cringe-worthy picture, but with lighting this good he can’t pass it up. Just a few barely perceptible adjustments, and he posts the picture. _#swolfie #teamUSA #headdowneyesforward_

Sam gives him an unimpressed look from where he’s standing near the door. He’s in a t-shirt and sweats despite the fact that his session is running parallel to Steve’s and there’s no reason he shouldn’t also be in his singlet and ready to go.

“What?”

The unimpressed look doesn’t leave his face. “I take back every good thing I’ve ever said about you. You don’t even lift.”

“Says who?” 

“Says _those_ ,” Sam replies, motioning vaguely in the direction of Steve’s biceps. “Bet that’s why you buy all your shirts so small, like an optical illusion.” 

“No optical illusions, just a lot of beef,” Steve responds primly. He makes a move to slip his phone into his pocket and realizes only a moment too late that he’s only wearing his singlet. His phone clatters against the tile. Sam continues to look unimpressed. 

“Beef.”

He’s inspecting his phone for any further damage to the already broken-beyond-repair-please-just-buy-a-new-phone-for-gods-sake screen. “You heard me,” he says absently, prodding at a loose piece of glass that looks like it’s one removed screen cover away from coming loose. “Grade A All-American beef.”

Sam makes a noise like he’s choking. Steve has to exercise all the restraint in his body to not look up from his very interesting phone screen.

 _nro63 liked your video_  

“C’mon, American Beef, we gotta get warming up,” Sam says. That unamused expression is still in place but every couple of seconds there’s a twitch, like something’s trying to break out and isn’t quite succeeding.

Steve doesn’t try to pocket his phone this time, just grabs his hoodie off the countertop and follows Sam out of the restroom, back into the chaos of the warm-up area. It’s even more of a disaster with the sheer number of lifters competing, but Sam seems to be managing to maintain his composure, even as lifters wander in front of their platform during their lifts or take their plates. They’re running two platforms at once and it’s their luck that they can’t watch each other compete, but they settle for sharing a platform for their warm-ups. Sam completes every lift with his headphones on, every lift made with a calm and a focus that Steve tries hard not to envy but finds himself coveting regardless.

“Just make your own playlist,” Sam says during the 10-minute break. He’s leaning against the wall, legs outstretched like he’s trying to trip someone, Snickers in hand. He’s already eaten two maple bars and a sandwich, but his bottomless pit status seems to rival Steve’s. 

“It’s not the same,” Steve mumbles through a mouthful of doughnut. His inter-competition sandwich sits abandoned, he only has eyes for the dwindling box of doughnuts that Sam so thoughtfully suggested (insisted) that Steve buy before they came to the venue.

DC’s doughnuts are okay, he thinks, grabbing another doughnut out of the box (not the last one—he’s a considerate person). They’re _okay_. 

“It’s a _playlist_ , Steve. Look, I’ll even set you up with a Spotify on that sad phone of yours, just—“

“I know what Spotify is _I have a Spotify_.”

“But it’s not _good_ , I bet.” 

Steve makes a half-assed grab at Sam’s headphones but only manages to snag one side. Settling for being only partly successful, he jams the earbud into his ear just in time to hear some soft guitar, a voice singing about fast cars, about being someone.

Sam makes a sound that’s half annoyed huff, half snort. “I see how it is.” 

“Shhhh, it’s getting to the good part.” Steve’s never heard this song before in his life. Sam’s elbow in his ribs tells him he knows as much.

Sam’s music has the desired effect; by the time Steve’s ready to take the platform his heartbeat has slowed from its usual panicked drumroll to a steady beat. His lungs no longer feel like they’re full of cement, like he can breathe again. Watching the lifter before him celebrate his way off the platform he takes a second to collect himself, take a few deep breaths, and shake out any residual tension. It’s a pre-lift ritual he’s still perfecting, but it grounds him at least for the moment.

There’s no point in asking him about his lifts. They move so quickly he doesn’t remember them, body moving on autopilot from the moment the chalk coats his hands to the second the buzzer brings him back into his body. The sensation is there; the feeling of the bar next to his throat until he readjusts, the distant _crack_ as his shoes hit the platform in the jerk. But there’s no crowd, no glare of the bright stage lights. It’s a little like staring into space for a second too long—a handful of seconds lost before he shakes his head and everything is clear again. 

And it happens again, and then it’s his final attempt and Nick is bumping him up again in a desperate attempt to secure more than a third place finish. Steve drinks deeply from his water bottle, is tempted to tell Nick that he’s fine, he doesn’t mind third, but third isn’t what earned him the Team USA singlet.

All the success of Sam’s playlist is undone when the announcer calls a 5-kilo jump. It’s 3 kilos over anything he’s ever done in training or in competition, a weight that seems negligible but to Steve already feels like it’s pushing him through the floor. He’s not even on the platform yet and already every worst-case scenario runs through his head.

His hands are already coated liberally with chalk but another layer can’t hurt. He spends a few seconds longer than necessary at the bucket, staring at the deep blue of the wall behind the platform. The clock buzzes, a 30 second reminder.

When he sets up he waits to leave his body, but it doesn’t happen. A glance at the clock tells him he has 10 seconds left.

The clean is powerful but the bar crashes onto his shoulders and catches him at the bottom. He strains, bouncing once, twice until his legs force him out of the hole. His body strains against his belt, trying to get enough breath in to help him through the jerk. The sound of the audience filters in and out of his awareness, voices coming from out of the darkness. The stage lights feel too hot, like they’re getting their energy from the surface of the sun.

Black spots are eating at the edges of his vision when he starts the jerk. It’s less of a legitimate attempt and more of a plea to a higher power to just _let me make this, please_.

He feels the miss before he registers that it actually happened. It’s the ghost of the bar over his back, a sudden desire to jump forward to narrowly avoid the weight clipping his ankle. The buzzer sounds long after he knows he hasn’t made it, but it’s a nice reminder.

The bronze is a nice addition to his collection.

 

* * *

 

“Who the fuck taught you to do that?” 

“Tons of lifters do it!”

“Not _at the bottom of their squat_ , jesus christ you’re gonna give me a heart attack.” 

Kate gives Clint a dismissive look and re-adjusts the plates on her bar. “It’s my sticking point.”

Clint just looks exasperated. “You don’t have a sticking point! That,” he points at the weight, a mere 70 kg, “is too light to involve a sticking point.”

The tense silence is broken by the _ping_ of Steve’s phone.

_nro63 sent you a message_

“Take a nap, maybe?” 

“ _You_ take a nap! You’re like five years old.”

Steve tries very hard to ignore his curiosity, and it lasts him all of about ten seconds. Who would send him a message over _instagram_? It’s like receiving correspondence via letter from a confused, older relative. 

At first, Steve doesn’t really know what he’s looking at. It looks like a little circle of black surrounded by a circle of red, until he looks closer. From there he can make out little ears, a pink nose, and the tip of a little pink tongue. The whiskers are just a little harder to see, but he finds them soon enough. 

The caption says ‘BLEP’.

Not that he wasn’t intrigued before, but this new attempt at communication piques his interest in a way that the stream of likes and occasional muscle emoji comments did not. His thumb hovers over the username for a moment. Worst-case scenario: it’s a spam account. Best-case scenario: he gets to see some more pictures of this cat. The stakes aren’t as high as they could be.

With that thought in mind, he clicks the link to nro63’s profile.

From the profile, he can take a closer look at nro63’s userpic. It’s a closeup, a woman holding a cat up in front of her face. Her hair is red; the sort of red that Steve knows some people would kill to have. The cat’s mouth is open wide, in a yawn or in a disgruntled meow, Steve can’t be sure. Her—if the woman in the picture is the owner of the account—account description is an alternating series of weightlifter emojis and spiderwebs, with the exception of the final emoji, which is actually a jack-o-lantern. 

The entire first row is weightlifting videos. 

Steve sees a large room with wood paneling and wooden floors. There’s a long mirror along the back wall, revealing two rows of weightlifting platforms in various stages of occupation. The woman in the userpic—now catless—is poised in front of a bar loaded with 100 kg, if the bar is a 15 kg women’s bar. 

He’s distantly aware of Kate taking another set of squats, growling her way out of the bottom like she’s ripping every bit of strength out of her body. Clint makes a noise that might be “ _for fuck’s sake_ ”, but he doesn’t completely register the words.

nro63—and why didn’t he realize it was Natalia Romanova before this moment—sets up with a something that sounds like a battle cry. It raises goosebumps on his skin, his mind stepping half a decade back to a competition viewed late at night. Someone hastily turning down the volume on the television so as not to wake his stepfather.

The lift is, from a technical standpoint, perfect. From the way she pulls under the bar to the way she drives her chest up to keep the bar from falling too far forward. A couple strands of hair come lose from her ponytail in the process and fall into her eyes. She blows them out of her face with little mind paid to the weight overhead. When she stands, it looks like the bar weighs nothing at all. 

He glances at the caption just as the video stops, the camera focusing briefly on the person with the camera.

спасибо, джеймс!!! followed by several kiss-blowing emojis

Steve can’t read the text, but he stops just before closing out of the video, takes a closer look at the person in the mirror. 

And the thing is, he knows who it is before he even looks. He knew as soon as he realized it was Natalia Romanova's account. He knew, and he looks anyway, the knowledge of it settling heavy in his gut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Steve is not Certified Grade A Beef he's lying to himself.  
> \- I don't know if I've said this before but women and men have different bars. Women's bars weigh 15 kg, men's weigh 20 kg. It's a silly distinction _except_ men's bars are also a lot wider which sucks if you have tiny hands (aka me). Also that center knurling.  
>  \- Youth Worlds is happening rn which doesn't get quite as much hype as Senior Worlds, but [here's](https://www.instagram.com/p/BL3L4sqh49x/?taken-by=hookgrip) USA's CJ Cummings literally breaking his own Youth World Record literally less than 6 months after he set it _and_ he broke his own American record _and_ he's only 16 can we just. Can. We. Just. :')


	21. twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dark place

There’s no way to backtrack in an instagram video, but if there were, Steve’s sure that he would rewind just far enough for the camera to catch the figure in the mirror. As it is, he settles for rewatching the video at least 4 more times, his heart sinking deeper and deeper into his stomach with each repetition. 

It isn’t like he assumed Bucky had disappeared into the void (he had, a little) so much as he thought something had gone wrong. He allows the video to loop a fifth time, no longer watching Natalia’s lift in favor of preparing himself for what’s to come. His eye tries desperately to pick out any signs of scrapes, bruises, any indication that Bucky hadn’t just fallen off the face of his side of the world altogether.

He brings his phone closer to his face, trying to look past the cracks and scratches on his screen to see the little picture underneath. The video repeats a sixth time. All he sees is a red henley, the familiar curve of his lips. Everything else is shadow and the fuzzy indistinctness of mobile-quality video. Steve allows a seventh repetition, then hits the button to return to Natalia’s page.

The other videos in the first row are more of the same. Natalia’s technique has only gotten better in the time that she’s been absent from the international stage. Her lifts look routine, regardless of the weight on the bar, her expression is unchanging. _100 кг толчке, который будет отмечаться с пищей!!!_ with a string of peace sign emojis and praise hands. Bucky—Джеймс—isn’t featured. 

After that it’s an assortment of memes—if Steve could read Russian. He _assumes_ they were memes, the text makes them _look_ like memes—and pictures of her cat. The more he scrolls the more videos he sees. Рывок, жим, подрыв с виса, power jerk, split jerk, squats upon squats upon squats.

“Working hard?”

Steve doesn’t realize how close the phone is to his nose until he nearly drops it, blinking his way back into the bright lights of the gym. It takes him a moment to locate the source of the voice, but when he does he feels the wide-eyed expression give way to something a little less incriminating. His heart, not getting the memo, continues to pound uselessly in his chest, waiting for what’s sure to be the next big attack. 

Sam just grins at him like he didn’t just try to send him into cardiac arrest. The asshole. 

“You forget your laptop at home again, or is this how everyone writes their schedule now a-days?”

Steve tries to shake the cold sensation; tries to ease something like a smile back onto his face. He closes out of the instagram app with a mental note to investigate further when the time arises.

“It’s not called a _schedule_ ,” He replies, setting his phone carefully into his gym bag and extracting his weightlifting shoes. The laces are starting to fray again, and the heel is coming off a bit. Just another thing to add to his List of New Weightlifting Stuff He Needs.

“Sorry, sorry, your WOD—“ 

Steve throws one of his knee sleeves in Sam’s direction. He dodges it with the grace of a man who has had many a smelly piece of fabric tossed at his head. It lands with a sad little _pff_ , skidding across the concrete floor to land a few feet away. Sam pulls a face in spite of the distance.

“There’s this magical device called a _washer_ , Rogers. I’ll hook you up if you really want.” He chances another glance over his shoulder at the offending piece of clothing. “Hell, even if you _don’t_ really want me to hook you up, I’ll still hook you up.” 

Unbeknownst to Sam, Steve _had_ recently sent the sleeves through a double wash/dry cycle, with extra soap and some of the floral scented dryer sheets his mom liked added in for good measure. The experiment failed, of course, leaving him with knee sleeves that smelled like a sweaty sympathy bouquet. 

He’s not going to tell Sam that, of course. Instead he tosses the other knee sleeve. This one comes closer, but still fails to meet its target. Its proximity is only the result of Sam having been momentarily distracted by Kate’s spectacular failure mid-handstand pushup.

“You _asshole_ ,” she yells, lying supine on the stretching mat. One foot rests almost casually on the rung of the ladder they use for stability during handstands. “You piece of shit asshole don’t _do_ that!”

Clint’s standing a short distance away looking horrified. He’s abandoned his coffee cups in favor of a shaker cup full of slightly foamy-looking blue liquid. As if he needs any more stimulants.

“There was a _bug_!”

“Yeah right! I could’ve died! I could’ve _died_!”

“You’re already practically dead, you live in—“

“ _Clint don’t start this right now I am not in the mood_.” 

“Look you hate bugs, I got rid of the bug I don’t see how that makes me the bad guy here.”

“I’m going to shove that shaker bottle up your ass, Barton. Come help me up.”

Sam turns his back on the situation with an expression summed up neatly by the word _yikes_. He steps over the knee sleeve that fell a few pitiful inches in front of him.

“Steve, I’m serious, those are _lethal_.” 

“Christ Sam what d’you expect?” The figure in the mirror is a slight but noticeable pressure in his head. He starts the process of loosening the laces on his lifting shoes, bit by bit. “You want me to air ‘em out on the subway? Some casual mid-ride potpourri? You’re gonna get me killed.”

“Steve I will _loan you my washer_.” 

“Can’t help me now, Sam. I’m already dead.” 

One of his laces snaps when he pulls too tight and he resists the urge to throw the whole thing across the room to join his knee sleeves. Something must show on his face, because in a matter of seconds something smacks him lightly on the forehead. 

“I always carry a spare,” Sam says, taking a seat on some boxes to Steve’s left. The shoelace has little red and white stripes, nothing like the cool blue of his other shoelace but he begins the process of re-lacing the shoe nonetheless.

They sit in comfortable silence as Steve does up his shoes, tries to shrug off the weight of the morning’s discovery with minimal success. It sticks to him, heavy and stifling like a layer of soot on his insides.

His hands are frozen over the last loop of his shoes. He tries to coax his mind back on board, and if Sam notices anything he politely doesn’t say.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes Steve reads articles written by weightlifting professionals posted to personal websites, to sports forums, to team-specific pages, and blogs. Articles with titles like ‘5 Ways to PR Your Snatch’ and ‘The Things You’re Not Doing Before You Lift’. All the pictures are stock photos taken from the first page of google image results, with the occasional blurry photograph of a local lifter thrown in for good measure. Sometimes Steve takes little tidbits away from the articles to help him in his training or to help during the still wildly uncomfortably afternoon crossfit classes. Mostly, though, he marvels at how many of them are actually just one big ‘unleash the beast’ circle jerk. 

The thing about those weightlifting articles, he thinks, pushing the bar into his calves as he sets up at the bar, they don’t _actually_ talk about weightlifting. He fixes his gaze on a picture of a recently retired Russian 105 kg, takes a deep breath, and pulls.

“Chest up chest up _chest up!"_

Steve feels himself rocking forward onto his toes. He forces his arms back to counterbalance his momentum.

Of course, there’s only so far his arms can go before he’s officially Failing the Lift.

He doesn’t so much ‘fall’ as he ‘slides forward across the platform on his knees’, the bar crashes somewhere behind him before rolling to a stop against the back wall. Something unpleasant bubbles in his stomach.

Steve doesn’t look up as Sam makes the last lifts of his working sets. He closes his eyes and takes some deep breaths, trying to get a handle on his emotions. He feels a hollow sort of rage and it leaves an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

“Just hold it up,” Sam says, nudging Steve’s bar back onto the platform. “Easy weight, man, c’mon.” He looks like he wants to slap Steve on the back but thinks better of it, like he can see that Steve’s one more missed weight away from throwing something.

It takes a monumental effort to pick himself up off the platform.

The thing about those weightlifting articles is, they don’t _actually_ talk about weightlifting. The thought nestles uselessly in the forefront of his mind as he sets up to try again. It’s an easy weight, his opener at the American Open and what’s sure to be a warm up weight behind the scenes at the Pan-American Championships. 

Or, will be, if he can hold it over his head. 

Steve tries to channel some of his emotions into the lift, but it’s like herding cats. Nevertheless, he rips the bar off the ground like he means it. Locks out like he wants the lift, and can’t help but howl in frustration when he catches the bar just a little too forward and it lands on the platform in front of him. For a moment, his vision goes black and he feels that same unpleasant tang at the back of his throat. If he stands up, he’s going to kick something. If he stays crouched in front of the bar, he has a feeling he’s going to end up right back where he started, again and again until he physically _can’t_ do it anymore. 

Those articles don’t talk about this. Steve rests his elbows on his knees and ducks his head so he can run his hands through his hair. He’s crouched in a ball and it’s just him and his thoughts and his overwhelming sense of failure. Pan-Ams are coming up, and he can’t even snatch his opener in training. The prospect of bombing out at a meet for the first time in years opens in front of him, a black hole that he doesn’t want to look at or even entertain. His stomach hurts. 

By the time he lifts his head, Sam’s already finished his session. He’s stretching on the mats with his headphones in, probably listening to one of his playlists. The whole scene is so calm that Steve wants to absorb it, just to get a little tranquility for himself.

The prospect of completing his workout makes him want to curl up all over again, and he fights through wave after wave of cognitive dissonance as he strips his bar. He thinks of the articles, little blurbs shifting in and out of his thoughts. _Not every workout has to be a perfect one_ , one says. _Only real winners push through_ , another growls, probably mid-flex. He contemplates the daunting, black 50 kg plates but ultimately returns his bar to the rack.

He and Sam warm down in relative silence, broken only by the occasional “excuse me” and “can you just step on my back really quick? Thanks, man”.

The hollow feeling makes a home in his chest on the way back to his apartment. He opens the instagram app on his phone, scrolling a few times before going to Natalia’s page. There’s a ridiculous moment when he wonders if, in some other countries, instagram tells minor celebrities how many people view their profile. If instagram can tell _him_ that Clint follows Natalia, then what’s to stop them from telling Natalia how many times he’s watched her videos? Scrolled through her pictures? He feels a little guilty, and his thumb hovers over the home button as he considers sending the window away. 

Except there’s a new picture, and Steve can’t stop his curiosity just like he can’t stop the sudden feeling of vertigo that leaves him clutching at one of the poles near the train’s doors.

He waits until he’s out in the open to look at the picture. It’s dark, with multicolored lights like the picture was taken in a club. Natalia smirks at the camera, red glitter around her eyes to match her hair. There’s a drink in the hand that isn’t holding the camera, and next to her— 

Well, he doesn’t need light to figure it out. He knows that face, from the person in the mirror and from the red-eyed goodbye at his door. Bucky isn’t smiling, but there’s a little twist to his lips like he could. Like he might.

Steve stays for a few seconds longer, cataloguing everything like the picture’s going to be gone the next time he gets the urge to stalk Natalia’s profile. He wants to text Clint, to ask him ‘ _did you know?_ ’ or ‘ _did you see?_ ’, at the very least. There’s a petty anger burning up the hollow feeling from earlier, mixed with the disappointment of the day’s session. 

He closes his eyes, takes a few deep breaths, and turns off his phone.

 

* * *

  

Sam sends him approximately 7 playlists over the course of the next week, which is good because Steve spends those next 7 days wanting to do nothing more than put his fist through every wall he sees. All the playlists are a variation on the title “Calm Your Ass Down”. They are all bookmarked for his down time.

“You get the new one I sent?” Sam asks, standing over him while he sits on the platform wondering why he thought this sport would be a good idea in the first place. Surely he wasn’t made for this. Some flaw in his genetic code that’s limiting him, and if he could just reach into his DNA and _manipulate_ it, maybe things would be better.

It’s a ridiculous line of thought, but Steve’s feeling a little ridiculous.

He nudges the bar with his foot. The 100 kg doesn’t budge, but then again he didn’t expect it to. “You wanna take my spot at Pan-Ams?”

Steve can practically hear Sam roll his eyes. “Wish I could, man, but I have my own shit to worry about.” That shit being, of course, his own spot in Pan-Ams as a last minute entry following his performance at the American Open. Nobody was as surprised as Sam, who hadn’t even managed to medal at the American Open. This surprise, of course, was followed by even _more_ shock, as he realized he had qualified not as a 77, but as an 85.

“You sure? Just eat like three and a half pizzas between sessions, it’ll be no big deal.” His tone falls just short of ‘joking’. If he can’t even make his warm-up weights, who’s to say he can make his lifts at the Pan-American Championships? The thought of wearing his red, white, and blue Team USA singlet makes him nauseous.

“Until I puke all over the platform. Real nice showing.”

He and Sam sit in silence for a minute, until Sam claps him on the back and jumps to his feet. “Finish your sets.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- A lot of lifters wear knee sleeves to keep their knees warm and provide some extra stability during lifts. You have the option of wearing actual _[sleeves](http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XU00JCIdcqhn-DI_D1xmMAogXRq0Kf9hlJqL3UujCVcqK394AERPekjAQvg=-w1200-h857)_ or [wraps](http://www.payvand.com/news/16/aug/Olympics-Iranian-weightlifter-Kianoush-Rostami-8.jpg), which take a little more practice to learn how to properly put on. I don't know about the wraps, but the sleeves can get _really_ disgusting and so it's really important to air them out and also wash them. Same with wrist wraps-- you're sweating all over that shit, don't be gross.  
>  \- I'm not gonna link to any actual weightlifting articles but a lot of them are just all about 'unleashing the beast' or 'embracing the dark' or something it's wild.  
> \- Every lifter. _Every lifter_ goes through a time (or multiple times) where their lifts are awful and no cues help them. They miss everything, even the easy weights. Like you could get a full 8 hours of sleep, eat really well and enough to fuel your training, and you could feel 100% rested, and things still don't go well. It's just this very dark and frustrating time and I don't know of anyone who hasn't gone through that. It's frustrating, it's scary, and it's not a fun position to be in. And sometimes it's a matter of a lifter shifting their approach to training (i.e. attitude), sometimes it just goes away on its own. This probably happens in other sports, too, I just never experienced it as anything except a weightlifter?  
>  \- [this](http://68.media.tumblr.com/103415976b38002d44e878f3e8d59a63/tumblr_of9ttoRYpY1vwdcuoo1_400.jpg) is also relevant to the above, and a perfect example of why Sam doesn't say anything to Steve when this shit happens.  
> \- You know who else is an 85? [Kianoush Rostami](https://youtu.be/EUIOAyQGgc8).  
> \- Uh. I have a [writing blog](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/) if anyone's interested in watching me make confusing posts while I write chapters.  
> \- Guys we're getting so closed to WWC 2k15 we're gonna make it we're all gonna make it.


	22. twenty-one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pan Ams

Training is a nightmare for much longer than Steve would like.

A “bad couple of weeks” becomes “a bad month” becomes “you’re a week out from Pan Ams, what is going on Rogers get your shit together”. His latest instagram post was made over three months ago, a questionable jerk PR that Steve swears isn’t a press-out but that Tony took great joy in contesting. In the comments.

 _What do you know about jerk technique you literally do a lift called a ‘sumo deadlift high pull’_ was Steve’s last comment, before Sam told him that fighting on the internet was for bored teenagers and angry old people.

So he trains.

He trains, and he feels himself winding tighter and tighter. He misses two jerks in his heavier warm up sets so he drops right back down to the bar and moves back up again. He hammers out the kinks until they’re perfect and his shoulders feel useless.

By the time his final session comes around, the next lift he misses is going to send him flying in a million different directions. Steve spends an extra ten minutes warming up with just the bar, just a wooden stick, just the wall. He feels the stretch in his muscles and waits for a relaxation that never comes.

When he picks up his bar again, he feels like he’s gone five rounds with a Zamboni and lost. Standing up his cleans is an unconscionable effort, and even his jerks—which are typically his best part of the clean and jerk, because he has a lot of anger to work through—are press outs the likes of which even he can’t deny. And if _he_ can’t convince himself that they’re nothing short of a glorified push press, surely he’s not fooling any judges.

The end of his workout brings the sort of bone-deep relief that makes him want to hide in shame. He tries not to think about it too much as he unlocks the front doors to the gym, letting in the air that’s just on the uncomfortable side of warm. Nobody’s waiting outside this morning, probably still sleeping off the stress of final exams, or perhaps already on vacation.

Steve turns on the lights in the front window and takes his customary seat at the ‘desk’.

He opens instagram out of habit, ignoring the notifications in favor of scrolling through his feed. In response to Sam’s most recent snatch PR video he comments ‘ _too easy!!_ ’ with a string of bicep and heart eyes emojis. Kate's posted a picture of a girl in a black and blue singlet. She’s wearing a red beanie and stands in front of a heavily loaded barbell. ‘ _Watching this girl crush it in her first USAPL meet!! #wcw #powerlifting #girlswhopowerlift’_. Steve, after counting all of 150 kg on the bar, ‘likes’ the picture with a mental note to ask Kate about this girl the next time he sees her. 

It’s not until he’s scrolled back far enough that he’s looking at the same pictures he saw two days ago that he realizes he has a new message.

He doesn’t even have to pretend like he doesn’t know who it’s from. Natalia’s userpic looks up at him from his inbox and next to it are four or five pictures, all of her cat from various, unflattering angles. The last one—both eyes half-closed, the little, pink nose scrunched up, teeth bared—is accompanied by a caption. ‘ _sneezes!!!!!!_ ’.

Steve closes out of the app without bothering to check Natalia’s videos. He has enough to worry about with Pan Ams and salvaging his floundering weightlifting career, he doesn’t need to be preoccupied by anything else.

 

* * *

 

 

 _U gotta start paying me for these_ , Sam texts after a string of the most recent ‘calm your shit’ playlists. They’re sitting maybe three seats apart at the airport, waiting for their flight to board, but Sam insists on texting so as not to annoy the two people sitting between them. 

 _Do I look like the kind of person who can pay you?_ Steve types, before scrolling through the new collections. Otis Redding, Vienna Teng, and then—

_what about linus and lucy screams soothing to you?_

_Gotta keep u on ur toes :)_

_Im shaming you for this_

_less shaming more paying_

_Ill pay you in shame tokens_

_to be redeemed at the shame store_

_come get your shame tokens sam_

Sam, forgetting that he suggested their text-based exchange in the first place, gives him a disgusted look over the top of a balding, elderly gentleman and his wife. 

“ _Shame_ tokens?”

Steve responds with his best shit-eating grin. 

“After all I did for you, after all the playlists, you pay me in shame tokens.”

“For a limited time only,” Steve replies, still scrolling through the music selection for the competition. It helps take his mind off the pit opening in his stomach, the nagging ‘ _what if_ ’ at the back of his mind. 

“I picked out album art for you,” Sam says, dismayed.

They’re still bickering as they board the flight, gym bags slung over their shoulders with their singlets and a few days worth of clothing and not much else. As much as they want a chance to enjoy some time off, both of them agreed that they have bills to pay. It puts an end to the ‘vacation vs work’ debate pretty quickly.

At takeoff, Sam is already asleep in the aisle seat and Steve is trying his hardest not to stare at the infant in the seat next to him. She’s sitting in her mother’s lap and while she isn’t fussing (yet), he feels the weight of her stare, and her little feet kicking against his armrest.

Eventually, he drifts into a bizarre half-sleep, the likes of which he's only ever experienced on airplanes. The baby next to him makes little noises every once in a while that could signal the beginning of a tantrum, but don’t escalate beyond that. At one point he wakes up just long enough to have the flight attendant shove a tiny glass of water at him, but he’s not awake long enough to drink it.

He wakes again as they’re landing. Sam’s drooling on his shoulder and the little girl has resumed her takeoff activity of choice. His armrest vibrates with every little kick, and her mother shoots him an apologetic look every time it happens. 

Somewhere between getting through customs and getting on the shuttle to their hotel, Sam goes quiet.

“You wanna eat before, or…“

Sam offers a shrug in response. His gaze is fixed on a distant point beyond the passing buildings.

“I mean, we could even go see the venue, if you want? Might make it a little less…” 

Sam shifts a little until he’s completely facing his window. 

“… uncomfortable…” Steve tries very hard not to clear his throat.

“Or we—“ 

“Steve.” Sam’s still not looking at him, but his voice is steady. The ‘shut up’ goes unsaid.

The quiet follows them to the hotel. It’s a tiny, two-story building that looks like it used to be someone’s home, complete with a tiny kitchen and faded, yellow curtains. The desk where they check in sits in the middle of a living room. A pug waddles over and sniffs curiously at Sam’s shoe before it decides that they’re not a threat and returns to its place on an overstuffed armchair.

Overall, Steve’s stayed in worse places.

Sam decides to break his silence when they get to the bedroom.

“I call top bunk.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Sam looks as tense as Steve feels. He declines breakfast, choosing instead to down coffee after coffee until Steve takes the Styrofoam cup away from him.

“Do you even taste this?”

“It's like drinking gasoline, now give it back.” Sam’s hands are shaking when he grabs for the cup. 

“This is like your sixth cup you’re gonna have a heart attack,” Steve says, pulling the cup a few inches out of Sam’s grasp.

Sam doesn’t dignify that with a response, just grabs at the cup again. He squeezes the Styrofoam until Steve relinquishes it only because he doesn’t want it to break. When he sees that Steve isn’t going to take it from him again he chugs the rest, with an expression reminiscent of a man resigning himself to something horrible. 

“How’s that gasoline?”

“Shut up.” 

Steve, for once, weighs in exactly where he needs to be. Sam, on the other hand, ekes in at 77.02. The lack of breakfast probably didn’t help. 

“We gotta couple’ve hours, c’mon.” Steve tugs Sam in the direction of the food vendors. “Let’s get a couple waffles, some… some rice… stuff… some more… waffles…” 

“I’m sensing a trend.”

“No trend, just a lot of waffles.”

There are no waffles available when they reach the vendors. There are, however, people advertising ‘protein doughnuts’, which Steve can’t pass up, much to Sam’s (very vocal) disgust.

“We’re not even dieting. We’re not dieting. Steve. We can get _real_ doughnuts. Plus, this place probably doesn’t even have coffee.”

Steve ignores him, in favor of approaching the woman at the booth. He makes sure his order is extra loud.

“Can I get three streusel and three of the… I guess of the chocolate chip? And two of the pumpkin, I guess.” He makes a point of motioning at the coffee menu, just as an ‘I told you so’. “ _And_ a coffee. Thank you.” 

They get their food and head back in the direction of the warm-up room. When they’ve found an empty platform, Sam picks up one of the pumpkin doughnuts like it’s something he found in the back of his fridge a month after the expiration date. He sniffs it once, inspects it for something, although Steve isn’t sure what. 

“It’s food, Sam. It goes in your face.” Steve is already two doughnuts deep and he’s talking through a third one that he shoved in his mouth only seconds before. Sam, though safely out of the crumb zone, takes a step back.

“C’mon,” Steve says in another shower of crumbs, “it’s good, I swear.” 

“You eat some questionable shit, Rogers.”

“Yeah but not _this_. You can’t fuck up doughnuts.” 

The hour notification for the men’s 85 blares over the loudspeaker, the majority of the words lost in the cacophony of people and barbells. Sam makes a face and sets his coffee carefully down by his feet.

“If I die…”

“Eat the doughnut. Listen to your playlist. Take a nap.”

Sam pauses, doughnut halfway to his mouth. “Steve I drank like 7 cups of coffee there’s no way in hell I’m sleeping. Ever.” 

“Fine, but eat the doughnut.” 

Sam eats the doughnut. He takes hesitant little bites that become normal sized bites by the time he’s a third of the way in. He’s not even done with the first before he reaches for one of the chocolate chip ones, liberally coating it in some of the frosting that came with their order. 

Steve’s face must reflect how badly he wants to remind Sam just how much he told him so, because Sam holds up a hand to stop him.

“We’re not having this conversation,” he says once he’s swallowed. “I’m gonna eat the rest of these, you’re gonna get some more, and we’re not gonna have that conversation.” 

“I mean you could also just say I’m right,” Steve reminds him, not getting up from his spot against the wall or even preparing to do so. If Sam wants more protein doughnuts he can get them himself. 

“I could also drop a 20 kilo plate on my foot but I’m not gonna.”

They fall silent again. Although Sam is still making his way through the rest of the doughnuts his gaze is fixed somewhere beyond the walls of the warm-up room. Steve watches, the suggestion that Sam listen to some music perched on the tip of his tongue. 

While Sam warms up, Steve lets his own disparaging thoughts sneak in. The ‘ _what if_ ’ that he tried so hard to keep away, the picture of six different misses in any number of ways. 

He tugs at his hoodie, suddenly a little too warm in the air conditioned room, but he doesn’t take it off. The feeling of something cavernous opening in his stomach is back. His lungs hurt, like somehow the clenching of his jaw has traveled down to his chest and has made a home there. 

This isn’t his first international competition, but that doesn’t keep his breath from coming too fast. Having prior experience doesn’t stop his heart from getting with the program every few minutes, just in time to put on a burst of speed before he gets everything under control again.

If Sam’s silence is a byproduct of his nerves, his focus isn’t affected at all. He still approaches the bar with the same determination and attention that he always dedicates to each lift. If anything, the only change Steve can see is how tightly Sam holds himself, at the bottom of his drop snatches, at the start of the lift. One wrong move and he might split into a million different pieces. 

Then one of the officials calls his name, and Sam’s gone. Steve briefly loses sight of him in the crowd of lifters, until he reappears toward the end of the line. The official—a woman in a dark blue suit— calls the names one more time, in alphabetical order as always, until she’s absolutely sure everyone is where they should be. 

With Sam gone, Steve has nothing to do except sit with his thoughts. It’s an unpleasant feeling, one that makes him reach for his headphones in an attempt to drown out whatever decides to float through his head.

He’s halfway through the first of Sam’s new playlists when the lifters filter back from being introduced. Sam moves quickly back toward their platform. His opening attempts have him at the beginning of his class, and he has to prepare quickly.

Steve accompanies him almost to the edge of the platform, but can’t go any further. He watches as Sam stands at the foot of the stairs, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. 

The first snatch is forward even as Sam pulls it off the floor. It loops out in front and sends him rushing to the edge of the platform. He stands, toes hanging off the edge of the wood, until the buzzer gives him permission to stand back and drop the bar.

It sets the tone for the rest of the competition. Sam sits on one of the couches off to the side of the platform where others have gathered, waiting their turn to make their opening attempts. Steve brings him water, a towel, whatever he might need to make his next lifts. 

The initial nerves still haven’t worn off by the time Sam’s second attempt rolls around. He stands at the mouth of the passage that separates the competition platform from the competitors and the chaos of the warm-up area, and stops. The loaders finish securing the plates, and Sam’s clock starts.

He doesn’t move.

Steve doesn’t coach at this level. He doesn’t know _how_ to coach at this level, but he makes quick work of rubbing Sam’s back, his shoulders. Sam shakes each leg once, as if getting the feeling back after the limbs have fallen asleep, and then heads toward the platform. The thirty-second buzzer sounds.

The snatch is noticeably hesitant, but picks up speed at his thigh. This lift doesn’t send him staggering for the edge of the platform, but Sam still takes a few careful steps forward, to avoid losing the lift out in front.

When he comes off the platform, he’s a little more relaxed. Not at all where he usually is, but he’s closer.

“Just another four kilos.”

“You sure? I think you’d be good for another six—“

Sam shoots him a disbelieving look. “I go for another six and I’m gonna end up on the judges’ table.” 

Steve wants to ask him why this is any different than the AO, than any other meet they’ve done, but time’s slipping away and he doesn’t want to risk being stuck with the automatic one-kilo increase. 

He winds his way through officials, athletes, and coaches on the way to the table to give Sam’s final snatch attempt. It’s a close call—he initials the card just as the thirty-second mark passes. 

Sam loses the final snatch behind him.

They head back to the warm-up room in silence.

As Sam begins warming up for the clean and jerk, Steve begins his warm-up routine. He feels slow and tired, either because he’s been stressing out about Sam’s attempts or because he’s been stressing out about his own performance. Or, quite possibly, a combination of the two. The ten minutes are up much sooner than Steve thinks they should be.

The clean and jerk isn’t nearly as forgiving as the snatch. Sam overshoots his first attempt, sprawling backwards as the clean catches him in the throat. He has a minute to follow himself, only to catch the jerk just soft enough for the judges to call him on it. When he leaves the platform, he’s seething.

“Bump me up.” 

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but Sam’s already brushing past him on his way to the seating area. He’s clenching and unclenching his fists like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them.

So he bumps him up four kilos, giving the lift to a Canadian 85 who looks like he accidentally wandered out of a library and into a weightlifting competition.

When Sam’s name is called again, Steve accompanies him to the platform. He searches for some profound advice, something that will inspire Sam to make his only attempt at the clean and jerk, but all that comes out is “c’mon, just hold it.” 

Sam snorts. “Thanks, man. I didn’t know it was that easy.”

Steve attempts to slap some life back into Sam's legs as an apology, and Sam takes the stage.

There are several reasons why Steve grabs Sam in a headlock as soon as he comes off the platform, the first of which is entirely related to the clean. The next reason is the jerk, and the final reason is all the drama that occurred beforehand.

“You can’t just miss two lifts and _power it_ , Sam that’s not how physics works.”

 

* * *

 

 

Steve’s adrenaline wears off somewhere between finishing his final snatch—his only make of the three—and laying down behind the warm-up platform.

“Sam.” He doesn’t want to lift his head from where it’s cushioned on his forearms, but he can’t tell if Sam is even looking in his direction.

He tries again for good measure.

“ _Sam_.”

Sam’s voice comes to him from a short distance away. “I’m literally sitting _right here._ ”

This time, Steve does lift his head, if only to see exactly where ‘right here’ is. Turns out, it’s just a few inches to his left along the wall. Sam’s got another cup of coffee in his hand and looks like he could use a nap.

“Can you step on my back for a sec?”

Sam doesn’t look up from his phone. He takes a sip of coffee with a slurp that’s far too loud to be anything but intentional.

“You paying me in shame tokens?”

Steve lets his head fall back onto his arms. “I bought you doughnuts.”

“Protein doughnuts.”

“You ate like six of them.”

“Desperate times, Rogers.” Followed by another too-loud slurp. 

Steve’s just about to give up and take a nap instead when Sam’s voice sounds from above. “You move even a little and this coffee’s going all over your head.”

"You have my word." 

To say Steve is unprepared going into the clean and jerk is an understatement. He doesn’t start warming up with the bar until the one minute warning call, doesn’t get to putting four plates on the bar until he’s nearly on deck. By the time his name gets called, he’s about ten kilos shy of his opener and his soul is ready to leave his body.

“Y’know,” Sam drawls, attempting to casually sling an arm around Steve’s shoulders, “a wise man once told me a great piece of advice—“

“Jesus christ…” 

“No, not him. Another wise man. Really gave me some perspective.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but doesn't say anything.

They’re at the base of the platform now. Sam delivers two hard slaps to Steve’s shoulders, and digs the heel of his hands into his back for a fraction of a second.

“Just hold it.”

 

* * *

 

_holy shit steve_

_steve look at this_

_i mean not at natalia natalia's great and i want to marry her always but_

_steve what the fuck_

_also nice job got some kool pics_

_but mostly what the fuck_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm trying to get in a habit of not apologizing for school/the rest of the world/my training getting in the way of updating this fic but i do feel bad for taking so long. The semester's gonna end in like 3 weeks so i'll have like 2 weeks to shove a ton of updates at you. it's the little things.
> 
> \- I have no idea how international meets work wrt like, very minute details so I'm just. hardcore wingin' it.  
> \- the IWF added a [new weight category](http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Weightlifting/Features/2016/September/25/IWF-Executive-Board-Approves-New-Womens-Weight-Category) for women which is super cool and also gives us as many categories as the men!  
> \- This is me expressing my sadness that there aren't more ladies who would be heavyweights in the MCU (and by "more" I mean "any")  
> \- There are a ton of powerlifting federations, and USAPL is one of them.  
> \- There are such things as protein doughnuts I don't want to link to an exact business but they're out there and I consider paying too much for them regularly.  
> \- wrt them slapping each other but not in the typical "we're bros and this is how bros act" way, [this](https://youtu.be/nkE4PDN0YM0?t=59m10s) is kind of what I'm talking about.  
> \- Traching yourself with a clean hurts, that's all.  
> \- Also, with regard to [stepping on people](https://youtu.be/uOG7t6dqXGI?t=8m57s).


	23. twenty-two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a real cowboy aka the unofficial soundtrack to this chapter is "total eclipse of the heart"

“… so.”

“ _So._ ” 

“… sssss _so_.”

The paper of the coffee cup is warm under his fingers and just pliant enough that he can’t squeeze it in the way that he wants to for fear that the lid will pop off under his fingers. Instead he picks at the little cardboard sleeve.

“So.”

There’s a plate with a single croissant sitting between them, untouched. The credit card limit was five dollars, but he can’t imagine anything sitting in his stomach right now. 

Across from him, Clint stares into his cup of coffee like he’s not sure what to do with it. It’s a stark contrast to his usual eagerness to drink whatever caffeinated beverage sits in front of him. Maybe he made a wrong assumption with the eggnog latte, but he made sure to specify an extra three shots of espresso so that can’t be it.

Clint’s stillness makes him itch.

He sips at his coffee—some kind of peppermint something or other.

Clint opens his mouth like he’s going to say something. Steve feels his muscles tense, preparing for some kind of attack. 

“….. _so_.”

Steve makes an aborted gesture, and were they in less of a public setting maybe his hands wouldn’t have slowed to rest quietly upon the tabletop. He tries very hard to take nice, even breaths. He thinks of his playlists, of the calming voices and the quiet guitars. 

“ _Clint_.”

“I never saw him. When I was there.” Clint doesn’t pick at his little cardboard sleeve the way Steve does, but every once in a while he fiddles with his hearing aids. Maybe a crowded coffee shop wasn’t the best setting for this conversation, for both their sakes.

“But you saw Natalia.” 

Clint doesn’t quite scoff but he comes close. “Yeah, _of course_ I saw Natalia how could I _not_ see Natalia?” 

Having thoroughly destroyed the little cardboard sleeve, Steve moves on to the croissant. He breaks off little pieces and scatters them onto the plate, like he’s like he’s feeding curious pigeons. “Natalia doesn’t speak English.” 

“How would you know?”

It’s Steve’s turn to be smug. He takes his phone out and opens the DMs on his instagram, pulls up the one-sided conversation between himself and Natalia. The phone catches on the scratched surface of the table as he slides it closer for Clint to see. 

Clint looks unimpressed. Steve tells himself that Clint’s just jealous.

“So it’s her cat, what’s it mean?”

“Everything she posts is in Russian.” 

“ _And_?”

“And who was her translator when you were there?”

Clint takes a long, loud slurp. “Nobody, she spoke English fine.”

Steve raises an eyebrow in response. Another third of the croissant falls victim to his fidgeting.

“I mean it wasn’t _great_ but it was good for a basic interview, y’know? I wasn’t there to—to _talk_ to her—“

“You were interviewing her—“ 

“—not trying to _sweep her off her feet_ I mean that’s _ridiculous_ Steve you’re being _ridiculous_ —“

“—just think that maybe Bucky was there as her interpreter—“

“—not like it’d even work out what with the _sheer distance between us_ a relationship holy hell—“ 

“Clint I never said—“

“—the nerve of some people, jesus christ.” Clint punctuates his phrase with another loud slurp. 

“But I never saw him,” he says after a moment, taking a pinch of croissant pieces and dropping them into what’s left of his eggnog latte. “If he was there, he was really good at hiding.” Another pinch of croissant bits. “Or a ghost.” 

Steve makes a face but pushes the plate in Clint’s direction. “But Natalia didn’t say anything about him either? I mean, how many Americans on the Russian team can there be?”

“Well, Rumlow for one,” Clint says. He’s trying to push the remaining one third of the whole croissant into his drink with minimal success. Eventually he just settles for taking a soggy bite. “Y’know, from the 2010 team.”

He takes the napkin Steve hands him, but doesn’t seem inclined to use it in the near future. 

Steve vaguely remembers the 2010 team, but Rumlow doesn’t particularly stand out to him. “Is he one of—“

“Karpov’s?” 

Steve takes another sip of his peppermint drink and gets a mouthful of syrup. “Yeah, him.”

“Maybe. I didn’t see him around the facilities when I came in but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Uh-huh.”

Clint looks scandalized. “Shut the fuck up, Rogers. _Shut the fuck up._ ”

He holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I didn’t say it, I didn’t say anything, you went there all on your own.” 

“With _your_ bad influence! You buy a guy a nice drink, some croissants, you think he’s gonna tell you everything? I can keep secrets, Steve.” He takes a sip of what is surely a lumpy eggnog latte, if not some very soggy pieces of croissant.

“You can but you’re bad at it.”

Clint seems to consider this for a moment and shrugs, accepting. “Worked out in your favor, though.”

Steve pushes some more napkins across the table.

 

* * *

 

Fury leaves the start list taped the computer screen when Steve comes in early in the morning. It’s attached with a piece of red duct tape, a thick packet complete with every session in every weight class. After carefully prying the piece of tape off, he thumbs through until he reaches his weight class. His name doesn’t appear until he reaches the very beginning of the A class. His attempt puts him among the first to come out, but still competitive enough to make the A class which is enough to make his stomach give a funny little jolt.

But, of course, it’s nothing compared to the name he sees a few spots down.

_BARNES James Buchanan_

And then, further to the right: _RUS_.

Steve looks at his entry total, several kilos above his own, and feels like his stomach has dropped somewhere below his feet. He wonders if Bucky knows who he’s competing against. He wonders how he feels about it. _If_ he feels about it.

“That the list?”

Steve drops the start list onto the edge of the desk, where it lands before sliding off with a soft _shffff_. Sam raises his eyebrows and looks pointedly at the stack of papers on the floor. 

“Are you done with that?” 

He’s still trying to regulate his heartbeat. “Gimme a minute, I’m still reading it.”

“Looks like some interesting reading.”

“Yeah it’s great. Really exciting.”

They take another minute to contemplate the packet before Steve reaches down to retrieve it. He slides the papers to Sam and watches as he flips through to his own class.

“Since when do the Russians have people in a B session?”

Steve’s hand shoots out before he can stop himself. He snatches the paper from Sam’s grasp and smooths it out on the tabletop once more. 

“Y’know what would’ve been easier? _Standing up to look at it_ ,” Sam gripes, both hands splayed on the surface of the desk as he leans over to look at the list again. “Not that hard. Or how ‘bout a ‘hey, Sam, can I see the list again?’ or were you not feeling that.”

Steve ignores him in favor of scanning the list of B session lifters. He passes over Sam’s name, toward the bottom, until

 _RUMLOW Brock_ and then _RUS_.

It’s one thing to hear someone talk about a (second) American defecting to the Russian team, but it’s another thing entirely to see that in print. Steve wonders when it was that he left, whether he and Bucky train together, if they bond over their origins or if they’ve ever even met face-to-face.

Sam bats Steve’s hands away from the stack for a moment. He sifts through until he finds the 94 sessions, and pulls them out of the pile. They read in silence, Steve picking out familiar names of the Team USA members and a few not-so-familiar names, and Sam looking intently at Steve’s competitors, alternating between the list and Instagram.

“Are the Russians even Russian anymore? What kind of Russian name is ‘James Barnes’?” 

 _I used to call him Bucky_ is what Steve _wants_ to say, but what comes out is a laugh that’s trying too hard to be casual. Sam looks like he’s seconds away from calling Steve out on his bullshit, but he’s a Good Friend™ and wants to give him a warning anyway.

“You know him?”

Steve finds the women’s 75 session endlessly fascinating. Jennifer Walters is going to give Podobedova a run for her money, and he’s looking forward to it. He makes a mental note to send her a message or something, just to wish her good luck. And certainly not just because Sam’s still looking at him like he knows every one of Steve’s aversion tactics (spoiler alert: he does) and isn’t having any of it.

“He used to uh,” he’s looking at the 63s now, at the A session, “hang out around here.”

“Mhm.”

“No really.”

“Right.”

“Deadass.”

“ _Steve_.”

“He did! He was here, and we sort of, y’know,” _almost kissed at a party,_ “hung out. A lot.”

Sam still looks skeptical, but he nods. “Thanks for your Tragic Backstory, man. Gonna need a whole box of tissues after that one.”

“Get your damn shoes on you’re the only reason I’m here this early.”

“Gotta get that oly lifting in before work, y’know?” Sam calls over his shoulder as he heads for the cubby where he keeps his shoes.

“Hope you like lifting outside, then.” He boots up the old desktop computer, which emits a plaintive _whirr_ in response.

“These Crossfit roots run deep. ‘S not my fault you can’t handle it.”

“I can handle a lot of things, but ‘oly’ isn’t one of ‘em.”

Sam begins what is probably the shortest warm-up routine Steve’s ever seen, just a series of shoulder dislocations and quad stretches. Steve isn’t jealous _at all_ because what Sam can work through in five minutes usually takes him at least ten, mostly because he’s secretly an old person in a young person’s body.

“You ever been to Worlds?” Sam does three high pulls with the empty bar before he drops into a snatch. He hits the bottom position with ease and he stays there, shifting back and forth while his muscles relax into it. 

“Always too far away,” Steve responds. He toggles the power button on the monitor and waits for it to come to life. It’s like taking a cat for a walk.

“You ever been to _Houston_?” His shoes sound like thunder on the platform.

“Nah.” 

He doesn’t dip when he does drop snatches, not like most people. One minute the bar’s across his traps, the next he’s a few inches above the ground, arms locked tight. Sam shifts again, getting a little more comfortable now with 40 overhead before he moves on to something a little more challenging. 

“It’s a fun time.”

“Is it?” 

The blues clatter into place. “Eh.” 

“ _You_ ever been to Houston?”

Sam’s power snatches are a sin against God but in a good way.

“Nope.” The greens go on top. “Austin, though.”

“Yeah well, it’s not in Austin.”

The next snatch is a little wobbly. Sam practically catches it on his toes but he still recovers like it’s nothing. He drops the bar with a small shake of his head, rolls his shoulders like he’s shaking off the dust that the last lift left behind. The next one is almost disgustingly easy, something like “ _that’s fuckin’ right_ ” floats over to Steve from the platform. 

They carry on in silence, Steve making some adjustments to the programming for his athletes and Sam moving through his lifts with the same focus and poise that he always has. Sometimes Steve looks up just in time to see the bar float too far out, or fall back behind Sam’s head but there’s no stomping, no growling, no indication that Sam’s doing anything but his best.

 

* * *

 

Steve blinks one morning between posting a selfie ( _four months out!!!! Gotta get these legs stronger_ # _FBBC #teamUSA #weightlifting #halterofilia_ # _olympicweightlifting #liftyourdreams #levantandossueños @serumathletics @supersoldierapparel #snatch #cleanandjerk_ ) and getting dressed and suddenly he’s standing in the security line at LaGuardia, watching in embarrassment as the TSA agent tries to make his large gym bag fit through the machine. His brain feels like it’s too big for his skull, the pressure just enough to be an annoyance but not enough for him to pop any of the aspirin in his suitcase. 

And how did he get to be two days out, anyway?

His stomach growls and he stops at the only food stand on the way to his gate, paying too much for coffee and a pretzel that only barely fits his allotted calories for the day. At this rate, he doesn’t think staying a 94 is worth it. Would rather risk weighing in just a little too heavy and being in a C class than having to determine if he can eat a goddamn soft pretzel for breakfast.

The headache crawls its way to a spot between his eyes and settles there. When coffee doesn’t make it go away—and it’s decaf so he’s really reaching with that one—he grudgingly opens his bag and extracts two aspirin.

If he’s being honest, the neon lights in the hallways aren’t helping any.

He should have followed Sam to JFK.

The flight is uneventful as always; quiet and cramped and completely removed from the laws of time. The captain announces that they’re making their descent into Houston and an hour later it feels like they’re still descending. Steve resists the urge to turn on his cell phone and check the time. Maybe he misheard.

When he gets off the plane, he’s greeted by 7 new messages from Natalia and four missed calls from Sam, three of which are variations on the theme of “ _Steve I touched Kendrick Farris’ HAND I SHOOK HIS HAND Steve call me back Steve I touched his hand_ ”. Natalia’s messages are tame by comparison.

The first is of a pile of black and red bags, all in a pile against a nondescript white door. The tip of someone’s shoes are in the picture but the person is just out of frame and Steve doesn’t know if it’s Bucky or another one of Natalia’s roommates. _Time 2 Go!!!!!!_ and a string of weightlifter emojis.

The next are videos of driving to the airport, the camera lurching with sudden starts and stops and an almost-collision that makes Steve’s heart leap to beat against his adam’s apple. He doesn’t know who’s driving but he hopes their license gets revoked. Natalia talks to someone in what Steve can only assume is Russian, seemingly unruffled by the possibility of death. The camera catches someone moving too quickly out of frame, a sharp word that sounds like “piristantyeh” to Steve but only makes Natalia respond in rapid-fire Russian as the video ends.

The final picture—a video, once Steve clicks on it— is Natalia’s usual muse. A miserable-looking black cat with a tiny cowboy hat perched between its ears. It mewls plaintively as Natalia cackles in the background, making the camera shake. The cat twists its head a few times and only succeeds in sending the hat to one side, which only makes Natalia laugh harder. The caption says _ready for United States!!! A Real Cowboy!!!!!!_

Steve meets a still-excited Sam at the venue. He’s vibrating with energy or nerves or coffee or a combination of all three.

“ItookaselfiewithLydiaValentinshewasthereanditookaselfiewithher!!!” 

“Uh.” 

But Sam is already whipping out his phone and scrolling through what Steve is sure are thousands upon thousands of paparazzi-level pictures taken in the warm-up room.

“Looklooklook.” He shoves the phone under Steve’s nose.

It’s Sam, grinning excitedly and next to him is a blonde woman, smiling at the camera. She’s wearing a pink sweatshirt, hands bent to form her classic finger heart. 

Looking at the picture is a little like seeing the sun rise over the cityscape, those first warm rays of light that illuminate all the alleys and the hard-to-reach parts of the city.

Sam’s still not quite over the excitement of it when Steve hands his phone back.

“Did you _see_?”

“I’m surprised you’re not crying.”

The phone is, once again, shoved back in his face. “You don’t see the tears in those eyes? Look again, Rogers.”

The two days pass far too quickly. Barred from the platforms of the training hall, they tool around Houston and the venue, watching other lifters in other classes and cheering on the members of Team USA.

Steve has the pleasure of watching Natalia lift, an amazing performance that brings her to the very edge of her own 63 world record only to pull the snatch to her hips and drop it with an apologetic shrug of her shoulders. Her clean and jerks go much better, an attack, for lack of a better word, on the lifts themselves. She’s silent until her final lift, when she screams, the sound sharp and bright in the otherwise silent stadium. Nobody screams back at her this time. She makes the clean with some difficulty, a double-bounce out of the bottom that has the bar oscillating on her shoulders even as she dips into the jerk. The sound of her shoes is like wood breaking, is like victory, and she drops the bar without looking back.

Competition day comes too quickly and far too early for Steve to be this naked and standing on the cool surface of the metal scale. Goosebumps rise on his arms and he hopes the official will stop taking his sweet time and tell him he can put some pants back on. 

“Can I—“

“Just a moment, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve scowls down at his feet and adjusts his hands a little. He should be used to standing in front of officials without his clothes on, but somehow he’s never adjusted to it. Surprisingly.

“You can step off the scale now.”

He doesn’t know what to say so he mumbles his thanks as he shuffles awkwardly to the chair where he abandoned his compression shorts. They’re only a step above wearing nothing, for all the coverage they offer him. It’s not like it’s permanent, anyway. 

Fury meets him halfway to the changing room. 

“Wilson’s securing a platform.”

Steve feels like he’s being dissected, standing there in his compression shorts and not much else. “Uh.”

“You left your singlet.” Which is about as much of a ‘sorry I’m standing here while you’re practically naked’ as Steve’s ever going to get out of Nick. Fury holds the piece of red, white, and blue fabric out to him. When he doesn’t take it right away, he shakes it a little. “Hurry your ass up.”

“ _Uhh_.”

But Steve takes the singlet, which is the important thing. He makes a move to head to the decidedly less-public changing room, but Fury shoves him instead in the direction of the warm-up area.

“Change on the way.”

Which is how he ends up hopping down the hallway to the warm-up room, one leg caught in the leg of his singlet while Fury strides confidently in front of him. It would be funny if Steve weren’t trying to avoid toppling over into any officials or his fellow athletes. Maybe. 

The closer he gets to their destination the more he feels like he ate a couple hundred helium balloons, weightless except for the bubbling nerves at the bottom of his stomach.

The warm up room isn’t nearly as chaotic as the training hall. The weightlessness, the unreality of the situation, burns away and leaves waves of tingling cool in its wake. He allows himself to be steered in the direction of the platform, where Sam is slumped like he wants to sleep for a million years, even though he competed the day before.

“How many shame tokens ‘m I getting for this one?” He asks sleepily when Steve is within earshot.

“Like, five,” Steve says with more confidence than he thought possible.

“Rough. Have fun loading your own bar.”

“Seventeen.” 

“That’s more like it.”

They lounge for a bit, just to relax. In the background, Steve hears the B class finishing up, the announcer beginning the introductions. His heart alternates between beating staccato notes against his ribcage and jumping up high in his chest, little moments of residual weightlessness that makes him dizzy in a detached sort of way.

“Line up when you hear your name,” the official, a tiny man with some sort of European-sounding accent calls. He has a clipboard in his hands. Steve wonders if he’s going to have sweat stains by the time he goes up to the platform. 

His mind wanders until

“Barnes.”

The world is thrown into sharp relief as his brain gives a little jolt, like electricity all up his spine. His eyes snap to movement in a far corner of the room, as Bucky shucks off a ridiculous fur coat and wanders over to stand in line. He stands there like it’s normal, like he does this every Thursday in his track pants and Team Russia sweatshirt.

It’s so anticlimactic that Steve is almost angry at the way his vision whites out.

“Rogers.”

He’s far behind Bucky but that doesn’t stop him from staring as they make their way across the competition platform. The world feels hazy, unreal as they stumble through the introductions. Each lifter is met with thunderous applause, the occasional cheer from their teammates. Bucky doesn’t step forward when his name is called, only tilts his head in acknowledgement. Somewhere in the audience, someone hisses.

When they’re back in the warm-up room he pulls off his Team USA hoodie. There’s a dull ache in his chest, where his heart has battered his ribs and the muscle above it. There’s no movement there now, that cool tingling taking its place. He wonders if this is what panic feels like, but doesn’t let that change his course.

“Steve where the fuck—“ Sam’s hurrying after him, a stream of words thrown at his back that might as well be in another language for the amount of good they’re doing. Because the closer they get to the back corner of the warm-up room, the more Sam knows _exactly_ where the fuck. After all, the less opportunity Steve has to turn around, the better.

Bucky has his back to Steve as he walks over. He’s pulled his long hair back into a low, messy bun and there’s another hair elastic on his wrist. Natalia stands in front of him, arms crossed in front of her own Team Russia warm-up jacket as they exchange words in low tones.

“Bucky?”

Distantly, he hears Sam say “who the hell is _Bucky_?” but Steve’s attention elsewhere. At the sound of his voice, Bucky tenses, a whole-body movement that looks almost painful in its rigidity. It makes Steve’s heart remember its previous frantic rhythm, a merciless pounding against the walls of his throat.

He doesn’t know what he expects. Absence of recognition, maybe. Polite confusion in the presence of devastating head trauma, a question of who it is he’s looking for. Something to tell him that this isn’t—will never be—Bucky.

Bucky’s expression is blank but when he looks at Steve his eyes widen almost imperceptibly. There’s a ringing in Steve’s ears, like the night in the park, like the first time he saw the video. It feels like falling, like icy wind rushing through him as he hurdles down. 

Steve doesn’t know what he expects, but it’s not this. Not the slow, sweeping way Bucky looks him over. Not the way his lip curls into a sneer, a stark contrast to the _something_ in his eyes. When he speaks it’s low, a lightly-accented thing that grinds out like it’s forcing its way through rusting gears, or maybe it’s just the way Steve’s heart lurches to a stop. Maybe he’s not hearing right.

“What do you want?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how i said i was going to update in the two weeks leading up to finals and then i got approximately 12 million new projects and died?
> 
> \- a lot of crossfitters call olympic weightlifting 'oly' which makes a lot of sense but also makes a lot of weightlifters cringe like you just walked over their grave so you gotta be careful and stuff.  
> \- I, and every other person ever apparently, love [lydia valentin](https://www.instagram.com/lydiavalentin/?hl=en) of Spain. One of my good friends met her at 2015 Worlds. He did not meet Tatiana Kashirina, which makes me v sad.  
> \- the 94 sessions took place on Thanksgiving at the 2015 WWC. Fun fax.  
> \- Bucky's ensemble inspired by a text post from [Spacedog's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacedog/pseuds/Spacedog) tumblr, because bucky is a fashion icon also i feel like warm-up rooms are universally cold? even in texas?  
> \- Holy time jumps, batman?


	24. twenty-three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a bloodbath

“ _Bucky_?” 

“James!” 

Bucky’s stare is unwavering, every muscle in his body braced for everything to come crashing back on his shoulders, a mistimed pull heading straight for his throat.

“ _James_.” Natalia spits something at him that sounds more like a tongue twister than anything in any language Steve has ever heard before. Bucky doesn’t turn to look at her, eyes still fixed on Steve. The air is being sucked out of the room bit by bit. 

“I just thought—“ Steve’s not sure what’s going to choke him first, the words or whatever it is that’s crawling up his esophagus. There’s a news ticker running through his head and all it says is ‘this isn’t how it was supposed to go’.

He tries again, forcing the words through a space that’s too small for everything he wants to say. “I thought maybe—“ 

Maybe he was hurt. Maybe something happened. Maybe he had a _reason_ for dropping off the face of the earth only to reappear in Houston-Goddamn-Texas.

“Shouldn’t you be warming up?” It sounds wet; someone dragging a pitchfork through gravel and mud. Natalia says something fast and angry, slaps him on the shoulder again. 

 _Shouldn’t you tell me what the fuck happened_ sits on the tip of his tongue, presses urgently against his teeth.

“I thought we could. Talk.” Steve’s only acutely aware of the fact that there are cameras televising the warm-up room to viewers across the world. Maybe they’re far enough away that they’ll be out of the public eye. 

“ _Steve_ ,” Sam’s tone is sharp, his words punctuated by a none-too-gentle tug on his arm. 

Bucky swallows hard, eyes sliding over Steve to focus on Sam. Things have taken on an unrealistic edge, like all he needs to do is focus his eyes a little more and everything will make sense again.

“Steve _now isn’t the goddamn time_ —" 

“Why.”

Natalia throws up her hands. 

“ _Children_.”

At the same time Sam says “ _Steve for fuck’s sake_.”

He blinks. “Just a thought.” It’s casual; his body is on autopilot while his brain shuts down all but the most basic, necessary functions. At least he’s breathing.

“ _Rogers_!”

And Sam’s look doesn’t totally say ‘I told you so’ but it’s about a 90-10 split. Fury’s standing by their platform and although Steve can’t make out his expression he’s sure it’s nothing that’s going to shake the sense of unreality from his bones.

They make their way back to the platform in silence, strains of old pop songs floating backstage from the empty stage. He’s not the first to go on but he’s among the lifters with lighter opening attempts. There should be four plates on his bar by now, and he hasn’t so much as warmed up.

“Are you _done_ , Rogers? Or do you need a couple minutes?”

Fury’s voice comes to Steve in pieces. The words are slow but chopped too fine for his brain to decipher so instead of responding he shakes his head. His shoes are on the chair where Sam left them, red white and blue laces to match his red white and blue singlet.

The warm-ups happen, or they don’t. His name gets called or it doesn’t, because suddenly he’s walking past the other platforms, past Bucky lounging in his chair in his ridiculous fur coat. Natalia smiles at him—or she doesn’t.

And then they’re standing at the stairs. Nick digs his palms into his shoulders and Steve feels his spine straighten, head up, eyes up, chest up. Feet, one in front of the other, up onto the platform where the music comes to an abrupt end mid-verse.

He doesn’t remember when he taped his thumbs, watches the blue overlaid with white when he shoves his hands into the chalk bucket. The clock’s ticking down and he feels it like he feels his heartbeat. Like he might feel his heartbeat. Or not. 

The light on the competition platform throws the rest of the arena into darkness with the exception of the exit signs, little pinpricks of red light coming out of nothing. He feels the weight of Nick’s hands on his back. Shoulders up. Chest up. Eyes up. If he looks long enough, the little exit signs disappear just as easily as everything else. Slip into the shadows until it’s just him in the arena, just him on the stage.

He breathes enough for an entire room. 

There’s a moment between setting up and pulling the bar off the floor where he thinks he sees something, a flicker of movement out in the dark. It plays on a loop, that small disturbance of shadow, as he pulls.

The down signal comes to him out of that empty space, tinny underneath the applause. Steve drops the bar with a muted crash, inclines his head to the audience. His face stretches at the cheeks, the corners of his mouth twisting up into something, but the word escapes him and then

He’s sitting in a chair, water bottle in hand while Sam says something about running to the table. While Fury rubs the lactic acid from his legs, his shoulders, his arms. The water tastes like cold pennies.

China, then Belarus, then a youth lifter looking so nervous it almost pulls him out of whatever nebulous little mental hole he’s crawled into. Almost. 

And then it’s him again, and he’s right back in. The same disconnected walk to the platform, the sensation of someone slapping his quads, rubbing his back in firm circles. His lungs burn and there’s an acrid smell in his nostrils, a special smell for a special occasion.

Stairs. Chalk. Dark. Metal ridges against his stars-and-stripes socks. Metal ridges against his thighs. Metal ridges above his head, in his hands, and another tinny signal out of nothing. He feels like he throws the bar but nobody calls him on it. The screen behind him lights up red and blue and white.

He sits down and he breathes. He sits down and he rests his arms on his knees and his head on his arms and he breathes and breathes and breathes until Sam puts the penny water in his hands. It’s not cold anymore but it brings a little sharpness to the edges of the world, like he can focus his eyes again if he really tries.

Everything slips back into soft uncertainty as Bucky stalks through the stage-adjacent room, not so much a person as a force. He’s escorted by a balding man in a white and red warm-up jacket and a man who looks like the sort of person who’d take a bite out of the world and laugh in its face while he did it. They walk on either side of Bucky, moving like they contain him.

He doesn’t see what happens as they enter the long hallway, as they stand at the foot of the staircase. Natalia remains in the back and he wants to ask her _does he still get sick_ and _does he still get quiet before every meet_ until all his questions get answered.

Just because he can’t see what happens at the bottom of the staircase doesn’t mean he can’t see what happens when Bucky takes the stage. There’s a monitor set up against the wall, playing everything the stage cameras catch including the commentary from the announcers. Steve watches with a detached interest, a hazy recognition that something is taking place. 

If chalking ones hands can become a deliberate motion, Bucky makes it so. His movements are efficient, like he’s saving every part of himself for what really matters.

Steve looks away as he approaches the bar but doesn’t miss the sharp _crackcrack_ of his shoes against the platform, a battle cry as much as Natalia’s scream was a battle cry. The silence becomes something tangible that hovers on the edge of whatever haze Steve has slipped back into, something that presses just enough to make itself known.

He takes another sip of water and tries to get his eyes to focus again, just for a few more minutes. 

Bucky’s setting up and then the lift is done, a blur of black against a light blue background. When the down signal comes he drops the bar, steps away without looking back or acknowledging the otherwise silent audience.

“Steve.” Sam’s hand lands heavy on his shoulder but the body it’s attached to is decades away. “You’re up.”

Maybe in a different timeline he’d curse whatever fates conspired to make him follow James Barnes of Russia, but right now he’s just trying to get back into that comfortable nebulousness he’d been floating in before. His focus narrows down to the tape against his skin, slick with sweat and coming loose. He focuses on the way the legs of his singlet bite into his quads, the soft _clickclickclick_ of his spine as he forces his head up.

Where Bucky prowled, Steve approaches with all the care of someone rushing into a fight they weren’t supposed to join. His fists aren’t raised but with the set of his shoulders they might as well be. The chalk is heavy on his hands, heavy in the air he breathes.

The crowd—lost in the darkness behind the spotlights—is a different kind of quiet now.

Head up. Chest up. Eyes up.

He’s done with the lift before he even really begins it, a wild tug off the floor that nearly sends him toppling forward if not for the grace of something bigger than himself. Instead he balances precariously on his toes, feeling very acutely the strain on his arms, on his shoulders as he fights to keep himself upright. Very carefully he tries to adjust his weight, a gradual transition until he’s resting safely on his heels.

When he stands, it’s deafening.

 

* * *

 

“I swear Steve you ever do that again I’m walking outta here.”

“ _On your toes!!! What kind of shit_ —“

“This what you teach all the crossfit kids?”

The ten minutes between the snatch and the clean and jerk are some of the longest Steve’s ever experienced. He eats his customary sandwiches, listening to Sam recount his save for what feels like the hundredth time.

In Sam’s defense, he only started chastising Steve somewhere around the fiftieth retelling.

“You wanna tell it again?” Steve asks, attempting to get some of the peanut butter off the roof of his mouth while being really casual about the whole thing. “I think I missed it.” He feels like whatever fog he was under before is lifting, slowly but surely. Like he did the whole first part of his competition in his sleep.

“ _Funny_. You almost gave Fury a heart attack. Probably _did_ give him a heart attack, the way he ran off after you were done.”

Steve didn’t even finish high enough to be ranked among the medalists, but still managed to secure a senior American record, not once but (as Sam would tell him many more times) twice. _Twice, Steve! You crazy motherfucker you did it_ twice _!_

He did, however, finish in time to watch Bucky go 3 for 3, every one of his snatches looking like a warm-up.

Somewhere between his first and second sandwich, Sam abandons him, mumbling something about finding Nick before things start up again. Rumor has it that Rostami’s been hanging around the training hall with the rest of the Iranian team, something that might have also influenced Sam's hasty retreat.

The sandwiches are gone in record time, and he manages to free the peanut butter from the roof of his mouth before something red catches his eye. He knows who it is before he gets a better look at her, if only because nobody else wearing Team Russia colors would be seen within the perimeter of any other lifter’s platform.

“You got my pictures?” She sits next to him like their friendship extends beyond the realm of the occasional funny cat picture and one-sided conversations. Her nails—painted like little Russian flags—tap out a rhythmless beat on her phone case, like she wants to show him the videos in case he forgot.

It takes him just a beat too long to respond. “I liked the one with the cowboy hat.”

Natalia smiles like she has everyone’s secrets in a little pouch, but she seems pleased enough with his response. “Liho had less fun.” She taps on the phone case again.

He wonders if all water in Houston tastes like pennies or if it’s just the water in the venue. Still, he takes another sip. “Who’s taking care of him while you’re gone?”

The only change in her expression is a different set to her lips, like disapproval. Steve almost apologizes but he isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for. “I take him with us.”

“Just to here?”

“ _Everywhere_.”

He tugs at a loose thread on his sweatpants, pulls until it breaks free and leaves a little hole in its wake. “Oh.”

“He has many hats.”

“Okay.”

“I can show you.”

Something in her words doesn’t register quite right with him because he catches himself mid-nod. His mouth snaps closed, teeth clacking together painfully, and he stares.

“What.”

“The hats.” She’s doing the smile again. Maybe she never stopped smiling. It feels like they’re drawing up a contract, the expectant way she looks at him like he’s going to sign the dotted line any minute and everything will be solved. 

He should have started warming up by now. The story of his life.

Steve abandons Natalia in favor of picking up the bar. All it takes is a few fast repetitions; all he has _time_ for is a few fast repetitions, and then he’s throwing on blue plates like he doesn’t need to take the steps in-between.

When he returns to his chair she’s still watching him. She knows what his answer is going to be, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to leave it at that.

“Well?”

He drinks some more water. The announcer starts up his spiel again and Steve has to raise his voice to be heard over the swell of activity that overtakes the warm-up room.

“The pictures are pretty convincing.”

Natalia smiles, a proud parent who knows they’ve done everything right. “I will send you the address.” 

Steve moves to extract his phone from his bag, fully prepared to give her his number. The thought of going to Natalia’s hotel room—possibly running into _Bucky_ at Natalia’s hotel room—gives him that chestful-of-helium sensation all over again. 

“Just promise he won’t be there when I’m over,” he says, loud enough to be heard over the announcer’s coverage of a German lifter’s opener. His request is met with silence, but he’s too busy digging around the depths of his gym bag to determine if it’s conciliatory or a silence of offense. 

“Looking for something?”

Steve nearly upsets his chair trying to scramble away from the suddenly much deeper voice on his right. His chair wobbles, threatening to tip, but he manages to return all four legs to the floor. When he looks up, Natalia is back in her corner and talking easily to the balding man that flanked Bucky on every one of his attempts.

“Mother of fuck, Sam—“ He doesn’t quite know how to finish his sentence. Instead, he settles for trying to get his heartbeat down to something that isn’t verging on a pace of clinical concern.

Fury didn’t get the memo, because just as Steve’s heart slows to a speed approaching normal, his voice sounds from Steve’s left. Because both Fury and Sam are terrible people. 

“You take this yet?”

Steve waits for the initial wave of _time to die_ panic to subside, looks at his bar, and shakes his head. It’s an easy weight, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. His opener is at least 20 kilos heavier and his turn is coming up.

The look Nick gives him is something Steve assumed was reserved only for Clint at his most outrageous and unruly, possibly back when he was thirteen. To be on the receiving end of that look makes him almost feel bad enough to not take his time on the way up to his platform.

But, of course, he shouldn’t have taken his time. They call him out when he’s still 10 kilos off, a big jump but he’s still riding some of the residual waves of confidence instilled by the snatch performance that he can’t even really remember. This time it’s Sam who escorts him to the edge of the platform, who rubs the small of his back hard like something magic’s going to come of it. 

“Y’know, I got this really great piece of advice once—“

But Steve is already up the stairs and onto the stage. 

 

* * *

 

 

His performance isn’t enough to earn him a medal in the total or the clean and jerk, but it’s enough to earn him a decent number of instagram followers and a couple hookgrip videos, which is still something for any member of the American weightlifting team. It’s enough that amid the conversation backstage, he hears something about “trials”, about “Rio”. The thought threatens to bring everything back out of focus, to set him drifting in response to the idea of standing on a stage even bigger than the one he was just on. 

Sam must hear Fury, too, because he shoves Steve in the direction of the warm-up platform to grab his things. “C’mon you gotta fold everything so it’ll fit.” 

“You’re not gonna help?” Steve’s idea of ‘folding’ is ‘making everything into a tinier ball than it was before’.

“Nah.” Sam scrolls through his phone, probably looking at pictures of his favorite lifters again. “Ego control. Your folding’s embarrassing, man.”

By the time he’s packed his things like less of a barbarian, there are only two more lifters left in the room. He prides himself on the amount of self-control he exerts simply by _not_ looking in the direction of the corner platform as he and Sam leave the room to find seats in the stands to watch the rest of the session. It’s the last one of the day so it’s that or go home, and Steve’s body is simultaneously buzzing with adrenaline and ready to collapse, strings and all.

Sam, bless him, lets Steve have the rest of his pumpkin spice latte. Even if he does make kind of a stink about it.

“How’s that pumpkin spice latte treatin’ you?”

“Tastes like freedom,” Steve deadpans, pausing to thank a spectator who recognizes him from his attempts. He only narrowly avoids hitting her with his bag when he turns around. 

They find a seat halfway up and settle in.

It is, once Steve looks back on it, a bloodbath.

The first attempt goes to a Canadian lifter that Steve’s about seventy percent sure he follows on some kind of social media somewhere. The name sounds familiar, in any case. He walks up to the bar like he’s picking a fight with it, shouts his way out of the clean and dips immediately into the jerk. It’s fast and it’s angry, and he’s off the platform before the echoes of the buzzer have faded from the arena.

Between the Canadian and Bucky a lifter from Kazakhstan takes his final attempt, a mistimed pull causing the lifter’s chest to fall, his elbows and his knees to touch. It’s a red light before he even stands up.

But, of course, Steve’s not paying attention to any of that.

Bucky takes the stage. Steve becomes very aware of the fact that he’s nearly squeezing the lid off his—Sam’s—latte.

He hears whispers, a collective hiss that seems deafening in the otherwise quiet arena. Bucky doesn’t appear to notice as he coats his hands, steps in the chalk behind the platform before marching into place. That sharp _crackcrack_. 

From where they sit, he’s no more than a black speck against beige and blue, but the screens behind the stage project his movements with just a few seconds delay. Watching the lift in real time and on the big screen feels unreal somehow, Steve’s brain is unable to process the different speeds.

The first part of the lift is unremarkable, easy as any of his snatches with only a slight grind out of the bottom. Bucky pops the bar off his shoulders while the camera focuses on his face, his unfocused eyes. Some of his hair has fallen out of the bun and sticks to his forehead. He takes a few more breaths, dips, and—

Steve feels the pressure on his arm before he realizes it’s from Sam punching him. 

“HE. DID. THAT. _HE DID THAT_.”

The down signal sounds and Bucky stalks off the platform while the buzzing of the crowd increases again, now interspersed with the occasional applause.

Meanwhile, the screen continues to display the end of the lift in slow motion. The cameras capture the slow descent, the fluid movement of the bar that remains a fixed point in the atmosphere as Bucky moves around it. Steve watches the replay a second time, looking for any indication that the bar moves with Bucky and finding nothing but a stationary stack of reds and collars as Bucky falls out of frame.

No matter how many times he watches, his heart is always going to give a painful jolt in response to Bucky disappearing out of the camera’s view. He’s never going to adjust to the swooping relief when the camera finally pans out to show Bucky in a perfect squat, arms and wrists straining to support some 200 kilos above his head.

The Canadian takes the platform again, the same approach, the same execution. The bar pops off his shoulders, accompanied by something that might be a shout, could be the air forcing itself from his lungs. His jerk is almost too forward but he recovers to a roaring crowd that he barely acknowledges as he walks off the stage.

Bucky’s next attempt puts him about 7 kilos above the Canadian. The clean pins him and he nearly comes to a dead stop, before coming out of the clean at an agonizing pace. When he’s on his feet, he forces the bar off his shoulders almost as an afterthought. His chest heaves, the hair that came out of his bun blowing in the streams of air. He shakes his head once, twice, takes another breath in and drops, dead weight. The bar refuses to settle, uncertain as Bucky’s wrists snap backwards. He remains at the bottom of the squat until the oscillations of the bar cease, an unreadable expression on his face.

The screen barely has time to change before the Canadian is back on the platform. He stomps once, a harsh roar forcing its way out of his throat, and goes for the lift. The clean is forward, crashing hard on his clavicles. For a moment it looks almost like he’s going to recover, the camera zooming in on a face of someone that’s going to succeed out of spite and nothing else until the bar seemingly bounces off his shoulders to land at his feet. The Canadian crouches there, hands resting between his knees, contemplating the bar before he gets to his feet. 

And just like that, Bucky’s won.

There’s talk of giving up his final attempt, of any further attempts being nothing more than a big ‘fuck you’ in the face of his victory and yet his name flashes up on the board once more, an attempt 1 kilo above the current world record and seven kilos above his competition best. Around him, Steve hears talk of banned substances, of tampered samples and paid off officials but his eyes don’t leave the stage as the bar is tightened and Bucky Barnes strides on.

The cameras zoom in so close that Steve can see the lines of chalk dust on his singlet.

Instead of heading straight for the bar, Bucky stops just short of the back edge of the platform. His gaze is fixed on the weight in front of him but his eyes have the same unfocused quality that they did during his first lift. He shakes the tension out of his arms, rotates his wrists now bound heavily in black leather. If Steve listens enough he tells himself he can hear the creak of the stiff material echoing from the stage.

There’s a moment of unsettling stillness while the clock counts down.

Then Bucky is a flurry of movement, a deep breath and he tightens his belt, steps onto the platform. When he stomps on the platform this time it’s accompanied by a shout, something Steve can’t make out but with enough clashing consonants that he’s sure it’s Russian. He stalks up to the bar, gets set, flicks his fingers once, twice, three times, and pulls.

There was never any question about the clean, whether Bucky was able to execute that half of the lift with this much weight. His knees move inward as he bounces up, using the momentum of the bar to carry himself almost onto his toes and then without even pausing to take a breath he falls right into the jerk. This time the creak of the leather is nearly audible as his wrists bend back, as the bar rolls back, as Bucky’s weight shifts back. 

Sam’s gripping his arm so hard that he thinks there’s going to be a bruise. Steve would push him off if he weren’t gripping the arms of his seat in much the same way.

Bucky’s teeth are bared as he fights to keep the weight overhead, to fight against gravity and that very _human_ instinct that every weightlifter faces in their lifetime. He grits his teeth against all of it and, arms quaking under the pressure of it all, he stands.

Steve doesn’t hear his phone go off over the roar of the crowd, over Sam’s nonsensical yelling, but he feels the vibrations against his thigh. It’s a message on an unfamiliar app, from an unfamiliar number—but, of course, Steve knows exactly who it is.

 _Meet me outside_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... happy holidays?
> 
> \- The acrid smell is actually ammonia which I don't see a lot of American lifters use but that I see pop up sometimes at international meets. Supposedly it gives you an adrenaline rush before you lift. Honestly, I smelled it once and I uh. I don't think "adrenaline rush" is the right word for what happened.  
> \- Ilya Ilyin is the record holder for the 94 kg class in the clean and jerk and the total, has been since 2008 (which is weird because I would think they'd strip him of all his records? whatever). I don't have a video of him from that competition but [here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS_byPGx6q4) him like a year ago, after he moved up to the 105s.  
> \- I'm not gonna play Guess the Canadian but just know that there's like only one Canadian that I can actually see making the A sessions and that's not because I don't think Canadians are good at weightlifting I just... never... see them... in the A sessions... (or i'm not paying attention).  
> \- I love squat jerks. The original inspiration for Bucky's being a squat jerker was a mix of [apti aukhadov](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVA4_0gbWVE) and to a lesser extent, [norik vardanian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk8DGzK_zcI) who actually power jerks but has some A+ mobility and could probs squat jerk if he wanted to (slash if he wasn't injured).  
> \- Sam is all about Rostami, and rightfully so.
> 
> If you're desperate to know what sort of dramatic nonsense I listened to to write this, here is the actual playlist of actual songs: [ta-da](https://open.spotify.com/user/mutationalfalsetto/playlist/22MVQIP85bu3r6M3M5bejS)


	25. twenty-four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nobody gets their organs sold on the black market

The hotel room is nice, all things considered. There’s a little kitchenette off to the side of a two-bed setup and a little sitting area, enough room for two people to exist independently while also enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company. It’s a far cry from his motel, which has cigarette burn marks on the ceiling and looks like they might give a continental breakfast to you in a business-sized envelope on your way out the door.

It’s not like he was planning on staying long-term, anyway.

Natalia cuts his casual snooping short by all but shoving him toward the seating area. He spies several suitcases open between the beds before he’s manhandled onto one of the couches.

“Sit.”

The couches are leather that’s just on the wrong side of comfortable, all squeaking seams and hard cushions. He perches himself on the very edge, feeling like his brain is being stretched in too many directions at once. What little caffeine he had from the PSL wore off on the ride over and the competition is hitting him hard, bringing heavy limbs and even heavier eyelids. 

There’s the sound of plastic on fake marble as Natalia moves around the kitchenette. Something clacks open and then there’s the sound of a tap being turned on. The soft rush of water only adds to his fatigue and he finds himself slouching back into the couch, the leather emitting a low squeal like he’s sitting on a thousand very uncomfortable mice.

“ _Meow_.”

Steve feels himself slipping into something approximating sleep, that rough in-between where everything is warm and syrupy slow and the prospect of getting murdered in a strange hotel in Houston is far away. It feels like falling, like giving in to something.

“ _Mrrrow_.”

The leather squeals under the weight of something new, meanwhile the sink continues to run. Natalia hums something and it comes to him from a whole world away. He allows his head to rock back against the back of the couch and, jaw relaxing, shoulders relaxing, the soft _pop_ of his joints as he moves to find a more comfortable position.

In that soft space he hears something boiling, a _shff_ and clinking bottles, plastic crinkling under someone’s grip.

“ _Mrrrrrr_.”

Words, all soft sounds and rising tones, like speaking to a child. The leather squeals again as the weight shifts, as Steve shifts unconsciously to accommodate whoever has joined him on the couch. His eyes feel like sand beneath his eyelids, and his eyelids feel like they’re held in place by a force much greater than anything he can fight. It’s like burning, this tiredness.

A little _beep_ sounds, almost too soft for him to hear. He’s floating deeper now, feeling the beginnings of drool at the corner of his mouth but not awake enough to care. Any deeper and he’ll lose any awareness of his surroundings, although he can’t totally remember why that would be a bad thing. Can barely remember why he’s not completely asleep to begin with.

The sound of boiling water ultimately does him in.

 

* * *

 

 

When he wakes up, he’s neither dismembered nor lying in a bathtub with only half his vital organs so he counts himself lucky. There’s a little puddle of drool quickly cooling on his shoulder and pooling on the couch, and he’s sure the cushion seam has left an attractive indentation in his cheek, if not his forehead. There’s a cat in a little crown asleep on his lap, with little care for just how much hair it’s getting on his white Team USA t-shirt. There is no more boiling water, but there _is_ a little styrofoam cup of what he assumes is instant coffee sitting on the table in front of him. Outside, the sun sits low in the sky, staining it a deep red. His eyes feel like they’re full of little needles, a mix of residual fatigue and dehydration that leaves an off-sweet taste in his mouth.

Natalia is nowhere to be found.

Careful not to disturb the cat—Liho, if the crown is anything to go by—Steve reaches for the cup on the table. The leather protests all his movements but Liho remains blissfully unaware, breathing in soft little bursts, broken by the occasional “ _mrrrr_ ”. He feels a little like he’s meeting a minor celebrity.

The coffee tastes like it’s approximately 80% water to none percent caffeine but he drinks it anyway, for hydration if nothing else. It doesn’t wash the taste of sleep out of his mouth but it quenches some of that thirst. At the very least, he feels like he can move his tongue without it cracking off under the pressure.

He hears the soft shuffle of socks on the carpet, deliberate, like whoever is making the noise is trying their hardest to announce their presence even though it’s against every one of their instincts. Sure enough, Natalia shuffles into view a few moments later, a coffee cup of her own clutched in her hands. She’s no longer wearing Team Russia gear, decked out instead in a tank top with little red hourglasses and a pair of soft looking pajama pants. Her hair is up in something that might be a bun, but looks like it’s one wrong move away from becoming a ponytail. She does the same smile she did at the venue.

“You slept?”

Steve’s “yes” comes out an exhale. He clears his throat, feeling heat rise in his cheeks as he tries again with only a little more success. Natalia, to her credit, doesn’t seem to mind. She curls herself up in one of the chairs, takes a sip of her coffee-flavored water.

“You met Liho.”

He rubs a spot on Liho’s back almost without thinking about it. Liho makes a little chirping noise and digs his nails into Steve’s leg in thanks. He tries very hard not to let this show on his face. 

“I did.” 

She takes a sip, smile hidden behind her styrofoam cup. “He likes you.” 

“Feels like it.” Liho’s nails are leaving tiny punctures in his thigh as they speak. The cat kneads the skin of his leg, like he’s making tiny muffins. 

They sit in silence, though neither of them is handling it the same way. Natalia looks at ease, like she’s talking to an old friend and doesn’t need to fill the silences because there’s already so much being said between them in glances alone. Steve feels like his stomach is turning itself inside out again and again while the coffee slowly leaches any residual moisture from his mouth. He shifts and feels a swell of embarrassment as the couch protests his movement. Liho gives a disgruntled mewl in response, but releases his grip on Steve’s leg. 

There are a million questions in his mind, on his tongue, but he doesn’t ask. He takes sip after sip of bitter water and hopes Natalia breaks the silence first. When he tries to catch her eye, to give her a hint, she just smiles. Smiles like she’s having the time of her life or maybe like she’s trying to make him think she is.

The longer the silence stretches, the more discomfort sits close to his skin, scratches at him like some kind of wool sweater. He resists the urge to itch first.

“So.” 

He could kick himself. _Will_ kick himself.

“Yes?” 

She’s looking at him expectantly, fingernails scratching lightly against the styrofoam cup and he knows he can’t hear it but he _feels_ it, somehow. The sounds. The discomfort does not abate in the slightest. 

Liho mewls as his hand stills on the cat’s back. Steve is completely at the mercy of his captors and he wants nothing more than to make a dramatic exit through the window.

They’re still seated in their two different silences when the door slides open, a soft _hush_ against the cheap carpet. Steve doesn’t turn to see who it is. He feels it acutely, like the brisk air after someone comes in from the cold, the winter clinging to them as a second skin.

“ _James_.” Natalia’s voice is warm. If she feels any shift in the room’s dynamics she doesn’t show it, throwing out both arms as if announcing the end of some spectacular broadway show. The little styrofoam cup makes a plaintive squeaking sound in time with the leather, as Steve shifts much to Liho’s apparent disgust. 

His thigh is going to have so many holes.

“We are having a visitor!”

Bucky’s sounds like something left out in the elements to rust. “We are.”

The words echo in Steve’s head, little reverberations mixing with what he remembers of Bucky from before. They clash in his head, at war with one another. He feels a lurch in the most visceral parts of himself.

Steve doesn’t hear a question, but Natalia gives Bucky a smile that’s all teeth. “ _Yes_!”

There’s a sound like someone dropping a bag in the doorway, the bright clinking of medals. Natalia turns the full force of her smile on Steve and he can see why Bucky didn’t make any sudden moves toward the door. It makes him think of the documentaries he used to watch in biology, makes him think of crocodiles. 

“ _Steve_.”

He has the sudden ridiculous urge to stand at attention, although he knows his thigh would be toast the minute he does it. Liho is kneading him once more, apparently at ease despite everything going on around him.

“You want more coffee.”

Steve _wants_ to text Sam asking him to please get him out of here but he settles for another cup of water with coffee flavoring. By the beds, he hears the sounds of clothing rustling, the sharp rattle of pills. 

Bucky speaks to Natalia in Russian, the same low tones as before with maybe a tiny bit of warmth around the edges of his words. It sounds so natural coming from him, like he’s been speaking it all his life.

He feels that ache again that begins deep in his belly and radiates out, until even his kidneys throb with it. Rather than focus on it, he drags his fingers lightly down Liho’s back, careful not to upset the little crown. Part of him—the part of him that’s painfully naïve—wonders if the Many Hats of Liho actually exist.

The mini-fridge opens in the kitchenette and then Natalia returns with another cup of coffee for him. Bucky follows shortly after, cup of water in hand. He’s changed into a t-shirt with a faded picture of Dimas on it and a pair of red track pants with white stripes on the side. 

Steve wonders if Bucky always holds himself so stiffly or if it’s just because of the company he’s being forced to keep. Every movement is rigid, like his muscles don’t quite reach their full range of motion. He stands like a soldier awaiting orders, even as he evaluates their seating arrangement. 

“James, _sit down_ , please.”

Bucky and Natalia share a look, although neither of their expressions change in any way that Steve can detect. Natalia is still smiling in a way that is too pleasant to be real and Bucky remains stony, impassive. 

After what must amount to losing the exchange, Bucky sits on the opposite end of the couch. If he were any further he’d be perched on the armrest, but instead he sits positioned on the very edge of the seat, like a skydiver waiting for the signal to jump from the plane. 

Steve thinks that having his organs stolen and sold on the black market might be preferable to the sheer amount of discomfort he feels in that moment. He takes a sip of the beverage that somehow manages to be less coffee than it was before; tries very hard to slow his heart, which finally started to catch on to the situation.

Natalia takes a small sip of her coffee. She looks between the two of them, a small furrow forming between her eyebrows.

Bucky looks at the black television screen. He takes a sip of water but doesn’t seem to actually swallow it.

The silence presses hard enough to make his ribs hurt. Steve tries to lessen some of the tension by focusing on Liho’s fur between his fingers, the gentle rise and fall of his sides as he sleeps. He thinks about the soft pressure of his paws on his thigh, the little pinpricks in his leg when Liho gets too invested in the activity.

The longer the silence stretches on, the more Natalia looks like she’s in the middle of solving some great puzzle, instead of watching two very different people forced to interact. She watches them like an experiment, like a tennis match, like either of them have even so much as faced the other head-on since they sat down. 

Bucky doesn’t look at either of them, hasn’t moved except to sip at his water. His eyes take on a glassy quality in the soft glow of the lamps and there’s something exhausted at the edge of his stillness. In spite of this, he holds himself upright, breathes in a rhythm that’s so measured it’s almost uncanny. Like watching something playing at life. 

“ _Really_?”

Steve only jumps a little. Liho takes the opportunity to put a few more holes in his leg. Bucky doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard anything.

“Really.”

She lets out a breath that’s about 90% disgruntled sigh, and stands. As she passes, she mumbles something in Russian that sounds less-than-complimentary, something that finally draws Bucky’s gaze to her. 

Before she’s left the sitting area completely, she leans over Steve, not-quite-bun falling over her shoulder. She’s close enough that Steve can smell her shampoo, something like cinnamon. He freezes, wondering if she’s going to kiss him after all of this, or if she’s just going to lobotomize him through his forehead. Either seems perfectly plausible. 

The warm weight on his lap is lifted suddenly, leaving a spot that feels several degrees cooler than the surrounding air and several new pinpricks as Liho tries to retain his sleeping space. Natalia cradles him like a baby against her shoulder, lightly runs her manicured nails up and down his back and over his little ears.

“I think Liho is done now.”

“He is?” His tongue feels stuck to the roof of his mouth with bad coffee and nerves.

“Yes,” she says curtly, all but turning on her heel with a small _hmph_. Steve would have rather taken the kiss. In addition to the organ thievery. His lap is cold.

Bucky still isn’t looking at him, but he’s not looking straight ahead, either. His head is down, and now that his hair is out of its bun Steve can’t get a good look at his face to see where he’s looking. He takes another gulp of lukewarm coffee water, tries very hard not to move any more than he has to. 

After another couple minutes, Bucky stands.

“I’m getting more water,” he says, like he’s delivering a line to an audience neither of them can see. “You want?” 

Steve’s brain takes a minute to catch up to his body, which is nodding almost enthusiastically, like water is the best thing he’s heard all night. 

“Yeah, please…” He holds out the cup which, now that he really looks at it, is starting to crack along the sides where he held it too tight.

Bucky takes the cup, holding it by the rim using his thumb and middle finger. He looks at it with an unfamiliar expression, with the beginnings of a small frown. 

“Coffee?” He gives the cup a little shake and in the light Steve can see the shadow of the remaining liquid slosh against the sides. 

“Water.”

Bucky leaves without another word. He’s still moving like his limbs don’t work quite right, like he’s trying to navigate a small maze on one leg. Steve’s own body feels stiff and heavy, the result of sitting in one place too long after being tense for so much longer. The effects of the nap have worn off, leaving him even more tired, and with the beginning pressures of a headache. 

When Bucky comes back into the room he sets a little plastic cup on the coffee table, just out of Steve’s reach, and settles into the chair Natalia previously occupied. The leather gives one squeak under the new weight and then falls silent as he settles back. He relaxes in shifts, first his shoulders, then his arms, then the rest of him, melting back into the leather of the chair, everything loose except the muscles in his face. That slight frown. 

“Congratulations.” Steve’s voice sounds foreign to him, like he’s talking around something lodged in his throat.

“Thanks.” 

They each take a sip of water, one after the other.

“Congratulations. On your American record.” He wants to badly to detect something darker under Bucky’s words, something mocking, something in line with the sneer he was greeted with in the warm-up room but all he hears is the same flat tones. It’s almost disappointing. 

“Thanks. Felt easy.”

Bucky makes a noise that might be a snort. “Looked easy.”

“Really?” 

Bucky takes another sip of water, consecutive gulps like someone who’s dying of thirst. He sets the cup back on the coffee table and looks somewhere to the left of Steve. 

“No.”

“Oh.” 

They lapse into silence again. Steve’s fingers itch for the TV remote, some distraction now that Liho isn’t occupying his attention. 

“Your elbows.”

“What about them?” 

Bucky holds one arm up overhead, like half of him’s holding an invisible bar, wrists bent back. After a moment he bends his elbow, a slight change in angle that only someone who’s looking for it would be able to see. Another lifter. An official. Someone who writes the records, certainly.

“What’re you saying?” Something swoops in his gut and takes his heart right back into his throat where it belongs.

He does the movement again, elbow never quite straightening out. “It could’ve been. Gotta stay tight.”

It’s Steve’s turn to drink like a dying man, heart hammering in every part of him. That red, white, and blue banner flashing like warning lights in his head.

“Right.” Comes a little too late.

“Fury ever tell you your elbows buckle?” Comes a little too quickly, ground out like some big secret. It feels sharp, stinging in a way that has Steve bristling, defensive. Has the _you weren’t there why does it matter_ clawing its way down from his brain and into his mouth where it rests until he drowns it, wishing the water were something a little stronger.

“I train alone, mostly.”

Bucky makes a soft _hm_ , like a psychotherapist with a clipboard in some editorial cartoon. It doesn’t make Steve bristle any less. “What about the other guy?”

“He trains with me.” 

“He’s fast.” The words fall flat.

“He’s good.”

They don’t look at each other for a long time. 

Finally, Bucky stands, stretches like he’s trying to shake some of the ever-present tightness from his body. His shoulders _pop_ , like little toy guns. 

“It’s late,” he says. Sounds like ‘ _it’s time to go_ ’, like ‘ _I don’t know why you’re still here_ ’, like ‘ _you need to leave_ ’. Steve forces his body to cooperate, to stand on its own even though his knees ache, his head aches, his stomach aches. He sends a quick text to Sam, _plz bring the rental car_. 

They walk to the door in silence, Steve going through a million different scenarios in his mind like any of them are going to play out the way he wants. They walk past the beds, Natalia no more than a lump under the blankets and Liho nowhere to be found.

Bucky’s hand finds the doorknob first. He wraps his fingers around it, a hookgrip out of habit, but pauses to look at Steve, to look somewhere beyond Steve. He feels that tingling again, the same from the competition, like static in his bones and in his head.

And for a moment they’re frozen like that, eyes not quite meeting all the way but still focused somewhere on the other’s person. 

Steve thinks of other doorways in earlier timelines, of something sickly sweet and the faint thrum of a bass somewhere in another room. He thinks of pressure and closeness and the sudden swooping hurt of absence. His mind races with all of these things and his breath catches somewhere deep in his chest, never quite makes it out of his lungs.

The door opens with a soft _snikt_ , bringing in a small sliver of light from the hallway. Steve’s lungs remember how to expand and contract, even though it feels like something’s still getting stuck halfway.

“You have a ride home?”

He waves his phone a bit, in lieu of response. Doesn’t think his voice would hold up if he tried to do anything more than that. Bucky steps back, just enough for Steve to wriggle his way through and into the hall.

“I’m— _We’re_ in New York. In a few days. For a few days.” Bucky sounds like every word’s being pushed out of him. There's an  _if you want_ , hanging in the space between them.

Steve’s phone buzzes in his pocket. The promise of the car idling outside is suddenly too much to pass up, a safe escape, a chance to breathe. 

He’s pausing too long. Bucky’s expression shifts minutely, eyes slipping just to a point beyond Steve’s left ear. Everything is shuttered again, suddenly, and Steve doesn’t even remember when things had opened up. If things opened up. 

“I gotta—“ Steve holds his phone up again, by way of apology or maybe a flimsy excuse. As if sensing his predicament, the little message icon appears, the phone vibrating audibly in the silent hall. He’s talking to about 90% door right now, the only thing visible through the small crack is Bucky’s eye and even that’s dark with shadow.

“Get a new phone, Rogers.” Out of the darkness, something spun out of a different time, maybe. 

The door _click_ s closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year(s Eve)!
> 
> \- one of the big things in weightlifting is that you can't press-out a lift, meaning your arms can't extend any more once the weight is overhead. [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp8cCKmjGYQ) for example, would be a press-out. Sometimes this'll happen because the lifter isn't staying tight enough when they catch the lift, sometimes it's just a matter of triceps being too tight, etc. but either way, you can/will get red lighted if you press-out in competition.
> 
> I hope everyone has a safe and fun NYE! Thanks for sticking with this fic for so long!! As always, I'm on tumblr as [mutational-falsetto](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/).


	26. twenty-five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two losers meet up in NYC

It might as well be map coordinates for all the personality and emotion in Bucky's text. Steve holds his thumb over the underlined text and watches while his map application struggles to the surface. In a matter of moments the calm voice informs him that he’s half an hour away, if he leaves right now. 

He sends a quick message to Sam on the off chance that he wants anything to do with the gym. If Steve’s aching body is anything to go by, he’s sure Sam isn’t going to be moving far from his couch for a few days at least.

_going to manhattan don’t wait up :-)_

_?????_

_just in case you wanted to lift this morning_

_actually I planned on doing fran this morning_

_wanna beat my old time_

_bet I could do it_

_im so ready to move and be active_

He swipes his metrocard and slips onto the platform, breathes in the stale air with undertones of garbage. The station lacks all the bustle of weekday mornings, and Steve delights in the feeling of not being shoved along like a confused fish in a mismatched school. Those that have the misfortune of traveling so early cling to their portable coffee cups like a lifeline and don’t make eye contact. Then again, Steve isn’t making eye contact, either. 

_then u know what_

_when im done w fran I think im gonna do cindy_

_also here’s a pic of me on my 25 mile run_

_bc my legs feel so gr8 steve they feel os GR8_

The texts are followed by a blurry photo that is clearly taken with one arm hanging out of bed. The darkness of the bedroom is broken by sunlight creeping in through the slits in the blinds. Sam is no more than a lump under the blankets with the exception of his head, which peeks out just far enough for Steve to see his narrowed eyes and, next to his face, his other hand with the middle finger prominently displayed.

_:-(_

_why do you think I can’t read sarcasm_

Sam’s response is a series of shrugging emojis followed by an emoji of a hand in a peace sign. 

_b y e_

_lemme know if u get murdered_

One missed train, a frustrated pouting session on the platform, and 45 minutes later Steve is still not at the coffee shop. Instead he is exactly one block away, according to the pleasant voice on his phone. What his phone is not registering ( _“your destination will be on the right_ ”) is that his heart is, once again, late to the party and has chosen this moment to throw the door open with as much drama as it can possibly muster.

He might be having a heart attack. It would be fitting.

Steve’s phone buzzes in his pocket while he’s trying to breathe enough for his heart to decide he’s in no immediate danger. All it’s done so far is encourage the organ to crawl up and dig a space out behind his adam’s apple.

If anything, looking at the text makes things worse.

 

_u lost?_

Followed by the address again, the little underlined letters looking suddenly very far away even as he brings the phone closer to his face. Like he didn’t follow the directions his phone gave him to a T.

“ _Your destination will be on the right_ ,” his phone chirps helpfully.

Steve demonstrates the utmost restraint by not giving his phone any lip. 

_Omw :-)_

The little ellipsis appears almost simultaneously with his message being sent. The little gray text under Steve’s message says _read 9:45 AM_.

 

_rly_

_w the noses_

His heart creeps cautiously out of the little cave in his adams apple but continues to nestle in his throat like it’s waiting for any excuse to start back up again. Steve takes two deep breaths in, lets one breath hiss out between his teeth.

_:-) :-)_

No ellipsis this time, but the read receipt gives Bucky away. Feeling like his body is finally starting to defrost, he pockets his phone and marches in the direction of his destination.

“ _Your destination will be on the right._ ” 

Steve crosses the street just to approach the destination from his left.

 

* * *

 

The city is, at its core, a hulking mass of metal and brick and a thin layer of _something_ coating everything it touches. It is warm even when it’s cold with a distinctly sticky quality to the air, something that’s surely settled into Steve’s lungs by now and if it’s not the thing that kills him he’ll be surprised.

For all that the city—that _Brooklyn_ — instills in him a loyalty that he should probably be embarrassed about in some capacity, he recognizes all the grime and dirt and embraces it. Carefully. With only his fingertips, probably. Growing up in a place can sometimes do that to you.

The coffee shop has somehow managed to escape the clutches of the city's essence. Steve tugs open the worn, metal door (covered in that ‘ _hey I’m a door in NYC_ ’ something-or-other) and is suddenly overcome by a distinctly un-citylike atmosphere. The air is crisp and clear, with undertones of warm pastry and that subtle sour note of espresso. If he stands still long enough he feels like he can smell the wood of the tables, the citrus of some kind of cleaner, but maybe that’s a little much.

He takes two very deep breaths in, and narrowly avoids getting plowed over by another group of coffee shop patrons.

The first time he does a sweep of the room, he misses Bucky completely. In his defense, he’s on the lookout for something distinctly out of place. Something like the fur coat, the track pants, maybe a big neon sign that says ‘American Expat’. The fact of the matter is that Bucky is accompanied by none of these things, and is in fact seated in the back corner of the coffee shop, looking right at him.

Maybe ‘at him’ is a bit of an exaggeration. The closer Steve gets the more that he can see that Bucky’s eyes are, once again, just slightly to the left of Steve’s ear. Every now and again he thinks he catches a quick shift, their eyes locking, but that could be wishful thinking. Sounds enough like it, anyway. 

Steve stands at the table and feels absurdly small again, like he’s standing in his elementary school cafeteria with his bagged lunch trying to find the place he fits best. Except this is not his elementary school cafeteria. Because at least in elementary school he couldn’t name the burning feeling in his cheeks, couldn’t connect the churning of his gut with the sickly yellow label ‘anxiety’.

Bucky has a ceramic cup in front of him. It's navy blue, with little white wings painted on the sides. There’s a plate to his left with half a wrap on it. Steve wonders if Bucky still talks with his mouth full. 

Finally, Bucky looks at him for more than a millisecond; legitimate eye contact with no curtain of hair to get in the way. Something plays around the corners of his lips, all sardonicism and the warm-up room at Worlds. He has his hair pulled back in a bun, but manages to avoid the hipster douchebag look by mere inches. Maybe it’s the absence of an undercut. Maybe it’s because he’s not wearing aviators inside, even though that is very much a look Steve would expect from him. He tries to get his thoughts back on track.

“You gotta get something if you wanna sit,” Bucky says after a beat. His eyes slip away to look at his own coffee. “The coffee’s okay.”

Steve takes a moment to process the information, tries to compare this coffee shop Bucky to the Bucky at the hotel. This train of thought, which is very much still careening off the tracks, yields nothing except a popup notification from his brain. Error 404.

“Yeah,” he says, mouth unsticking noisily from the roof of his mouth. If Bucky hears, he doesn’t indicate one way or the other. Steve’s mouth feels dry and tastes like zippers. “You think they have water?” 

“No.” Tone flat, expression unreadable.

Steve feels his whole body stutters at that, one invisible jostle. He takes a step backwards, in what he hopes is the direction of the coffee bar. Bucky’s gaze slips back to the surface of the table where Steve is just now noticing a cell phone in a red and black case. Its surface is lit up, a million little grey speech bubbles with messages Steve can’t read. 

He approaches the counter and tries to make sense of the specialty menu. Ultimately he settles on something called a “café florentine” which sounds to him like a fancy way to say “we put hot chocolate in your coffee” but he’s willing to give it a chance.

“You guys sell water?” He feels like any more talking and his mouth might crack with how dry it is.

The heavily-pierced barista looks at him with something approaching incredulity. “We have cups. For water.” They motion somewhere behind Steve and he turns to see a prominent water cooler against the wall. There are little slices of lemon floating in amongst the ice cubes.

“Great.”

He pays for his beverage and carries it and his cup of water carefully to the back table. The little wooden chair he sits in groans like he’s too heavy for it and he wonders if sitting in noisy furniture while in Bucky’s presence is going to be a theme in his life.

Bucky takes another sip of coffee, eyes fixed on his cup like he’s contemplating a refill. Finally, when Steve is just about ready to crawl out of his skin and into the speakers playing a soft acoustic song about valentine’s day of all things, Bucky nudges the plate across the table.

Steve doesn’t know what to say so his body answers for him. 

“Buh.“

“I don’t like swiss,” Bucky says, as if that explains everything. 

The wrap is bursting with various greens and something that’s too dark to be turkey. Steve stares at Bucky for a long time, mentally urging him to look back in his direction again.

“You could just take it out,” Steve suggests, suddenly feeling like he’s standing on a thirty-foot diving board with maybe a foot of water beneath him. He looks back to the wrap, and then again at Bucky.

Bucky looks at Steve’s right shoulder.

“It makes the rest of it taste wrong.” 

“Are you sure? I could pay you for it, I have—“ Steve’s already reaching for his wallet, where he doesn’t have more than two crumpled one dollar bills, but it’s better than nothing.

“Just eat it, Rogers.” The growl carries undertones of something else, like it physically pains Bucky to have to tell Steve to take the half of the wrap that he doesn’t want. 

Steve almost asks if he’s sure, goes so far as to open his mouth, but he thinks better of it. 

“Thanks, Buck.” He hopes it doesn’t sound too fond but he also isn’t in the mood for kidding himself, either. 

Bucky shrugs in lieu of a verbal response. He shifts in his seat, all straight lines and stiff muscles.

Rather than begin a conversation when he has nothing of substance to say, Steve takes a tentative sip of his drink. It’s creamy and sweet with just a hint of bitterness from the coffee, like a cup full of dark chocolate. He opens his mouth again, this time to tell Bucky about the drink, but Bucky’s already standing up from the table.

“Gonna go get more coffee.” He doesn’t wait for Steve’s response before heading toward the coffee bar. It's just fast enough to get him far away from the table in a short amount of time, but not fast enough for him to be rushing. Steve contemplates the wrap again.

When Bucky returns he sets his cup down hard enough for coffee to slosh over the rim and collect underneath the base of the mug. He sits down with equal force, dropping into the rickety wooden chair like it’s not likely to fall apart beneath him.

“Wanna napkin?”

“No.” Bucky looks down at the coffee on the table. “Thanks.”

Steve leaves the napkin between them, a miniature barrier. Bucky runs his finger up and down the handle of his mug. 

“What brings you back?” Which isn’t even half of what Steve wants to ask, but Bucky doesn’t seem like he’s particularly receptive to questions.

“Natasha’s teaching a seminar.”

“Oh.” He takes a generous gulp of his drink to drown the rising feelings of disappointment. “Where at?” 

“Brooklyn Barbell.” 

Steve's face melds into an expression of disapproval against his will. Sam once likened his 'disapproving face' to a concerned golden retriever, but he hopes it looks more reproachful and disgusted then that. 

“Why not FBBC?” It’s an unfair question, but it slips out before he really thinks it through. This time he sees Bucky’s expression close off.

“It’s where everyone goes. They had Lu Xiaojun and Liao Hui a few years ago.” Like he’s reading off a script.

Steve tries to suppress his eye roll but isn’t entirely sure of his success. “Well. Next time. If you’re interested.”

“Hm.” Bucky takes another sip of his coffee and leans back in his chair. It’s not quite relaxation but at least he’s not poised on the edge of his seat anymore.

The music shifts, something about a conversation between two people in a hotel room, the cold conditions outside. He can’t quite make out the words but he picks up little bits here and there.

“You get a chance to visit anyone?” 

Bucky makes another noncommittal noise. It’s like scraping a thick layer of ice off a windshield. Steve tries very hard to smile through it.

He tries a different approach.

“Well, what’re you doing with your time off?”

“I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Taking time off.” He says it like he’s having to explain something that was blatantly obvious from the start, like Steve can see into his day-to-day activities, can sense the chalk on his hands or something. “I started up again as soon as I got here.”

Steve tries to hide his surprise but unlike the eye roll this time he knows he’s failed. “What, the 94 kilo world record holder doesn’t get a week off?” 

Even his shrug is noncommittal, a vague rise in his left shoulder and then nothing. “It’s how Karpov trains us.”

“Okay, well, where d’you train?”

Bucky takes the bait, whether he knows what he's walking into or not.

“Around. Lotsa Crossfit gyms let me drop in for free.” The corners of his lips tick up. “Better’n having to pay an arm ‘n a leg just to lift some weights.” 

“I bet Fury’d let you train at his gym.”

Bucky’s expression doesn’t change. “I’ll make my way over eventually.” He drains his coffee cup. “Eat your wrap, it’s gonna get gross if it sits out too long.”

Steve regards the wrap in question. “You’re selling it so well.” 

“What can I say, I’m a gifted salesman.” There’s something stilted about the way he says it, the prosody just slightly off like he’s trying to fit into a groove that doesn’t quite accommodate him anymore. 

Steve feels like his face is being pulled up at the corners against his will. He takes a big bite of the wrap before Bucky notices, chews thoughtfully and tries to focus on the different flavors. Bucky looks, if possible, pleased with himself, enough so that Steve finds himself finishing the wrap in no time at all.

He never once tastes the swiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have a short update while i try to keep my mind off of my upcoming competition :')
> 
> \- i've never been to a manhattan coffee shop that has seating but i assume such a thing exists because they can't all be starbucks y'know  
> \- i've also never set foot in brooklyn barbell but it seems tiny but not necessarily in a bad way? they have had seminars with some of the chinese team, though.  
> \- i love sam wilson so much he's a treasure.  
> \- i also love florentines i have never seen one in any coffee shop outside of colorado but i love them  
> \- stay tuned for more losers trying to communicate with one another but still seem Cool About It.


	27. twenty-six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thank god for compression leggings

Sharon is good at Crossfit in the way any natural athlete is good at Crossfit, which is to say she takes to it like she’s been doing it all her life. Despite Steve’s continued paranoia that someone will break something doing "Grace" or even during the technical classes Tony’s volunteered him to teach, he has to admit that Sharon’s lifting is more than adequate enough to classify her as Not A Danger to Herself and Others. With time, she could even be a decent lifter. It’s this fact— and their shared history— that makes him follow her closely, ready with an Eleiko barbell and an extra large pizza (with pineapple), should she decide she’s had enough of Crossfit. 

Still, for all that she excels at the running and high-rep lifts, the gymnastic movements still occasionally get the better of her. Something about coordinating the pop of her hips with engaging her lats, or maybe it’s just a matter of falling into the kipping pattern that trips her up. Regardless, any pull-up WOD leaves her fuming and standing underneath the bar, much as she is now. From where Steve is leaning against the wall he can see her mouth moving in a stream of curses as she wipes the palms of her hands on her leggings. The chalk looks like clouds. 

“C’mon Sharon just a couple more, bust ‘em out,” he calls over, knowing the words of encouragement make sense in one capacity or another but not totally sure if they go together in this context. “Don’t stop for chalk, let’s go.”

The look she gives the bar is murderous, and possibly meant for Steve, but with one jump she's hanging from the rig again. From there’s it’s just a matter of a few awkward-looking kips, a few “fucking _REALLY_?”s, and then she’s on the ground just as the buzzer sounds.

“Nice job guys! You’re really getting the hang of it.” He says it like he himself has the hang of a kipping pull up. Peter—who somehow manages to absolutely kill it at every gymnastics movement while tripping over his own feet on the way out for the 400 meter warm up run—gives him an unimpressed look while Sharon looks like she’s seconds away from hurling him through the dividing wall. 

One would think that Steve’s coaching would get better with a smaller audience.

“So just uh,” he motions to a pile of foam rollers stacked like firewood, “roll out, do some of that mobility thing you guys like—“

“ _Practice_.” If Steve wasn’t looking at Sharon as she said it, he’d swear the gates of hell opened just so one of Satan’s minions could express their desire to improve their butterfly pull-up. He opens his mouth to remind her that there’s a time and a place for practice and ‘angry immediately after a WOD’ isn’t one of those, but thinks better of it. She’s already looking in the direction of the rig, flicking her chalk-covered fingers like she’s ready to try again. 

“Or that,” he acquiesces as he heads in the direction of the front desk. Tony’s classes are up next and it’s Steve’s responsibility to man the weight room during weightlifting hours—something he finds much more enjoyable than teaching Crossfit classes for a number of reasons, the most important of which is something to the tune of _I don’t have to yell about ‘embracing the hurt’_.

The old swivel chair protests the dramatic way he throws himself down, but he ignores it in favor of checking his phone for the 0 new messages he’s received. He dimly registers the cold ache of disappointment, seeing that Bucky hasn’t sent anything since their encounter at the coffee shop. That, at least, he can nip in the bud with a firm reminder that they didn’t meet up _that_ long ago and some rationality would be greatly appreciated, thank-you-very-much. 

He browses Instagram, until the desk gives a sudden jolt to one side, the rickety legs unbalancing to support a new and unexpected weight.

“Captain America!”

Steve feels the tension in his muscles increase tenfold, but tries to be extra casual about it in the face of this new conversation partner. He slowly—squeakily—swivels himself to face the newcomer, face very much buried in his phone the entire time.

“Tony.”

The table gives a plaintive little whine as Tony settles in for the long haul. “Rogers. Cap. Patron Saint of Liberty and Justice for—“ 

“ _What_?“

“I have the _proposition of a lifetime,_ Cap.”

It’s hard not to let your eyes roll all the way back in your head when your coworker is literally leaning on your desk looking like Crossfit personified. Steve tries his best to maintain a certain level of neutrality.

“I’m listening.” 

He’s not listening. 

Tony inspects his nails—which are always somehow perfectly manicured despite the sheer number of times Steve has seen Tony biting them during particularly fast paced WODs—and looks for all the world like it’s Steve who asked for the pleasure of Tony’s company.

“I’m just saying—hear me out on this, it’s a good idea. A really good idea. Of course it is I mean, I wouldn’t be telling you if it wasn’t—“ Tony’s overselling becomes nothing more than a series of rising and falling tones as Steve expertly tunes him out. His eyes wander over the small handful of weightlifters that have come into the gym for the afternoon hours, takes stock of the chalk bowl, the state of the platforms. After a thorough inventory of the room he allows his gaze to fall on the chalk-covered surfaces of the Crossfit side.

“—and you could supervise, I bet. You’re always here early might as well make a thing of it y’know, get in some extra hours, let me get some extra hours of sl—well not _sleep_ but something like—“

The next class is warming up while Sharon continues her practice, mindful of the people wandering around under her feet as she swings. The others extend the same courtesy, wandering outside the range of her flailing legs. Tony’s voice continues on as a drone under the noise of the gym, talking about the importance of scheduling, wanting Steve to become a ‘Crossfit-friendly’ figure in light of the inevitable overlap between Crossfit and weightlifting. 

“ _Groundbreaking, Rogers_ I mean really, truly groundbreaking. Well maybe not the _most_ groundbreaking there's a lot of other people, but—“ 

Sharon lets go of the rings and falls back on the ground. She shakes out her arms, massages her wrists and works her fingers open and closed to get some of the feeling back. She makes her way over to her bag and pulls out her phone before finding one of the others. Their exchange is brief, consisting of Sharon motioning from herself to the rings and then at her phone. Eventually the other crossfitter agrees, and Sharon returns to her post once more.

The jump up is no problem at all. Once her hands are on the rings, Sharon hangs like a puppet until she begins the swing that will, if the universe is aligned in her favor, end with her at the top of the rings.

“—so if that’s of interest to you just let a guy know, by which I mean let _me_ know, because—“

“Tony.”

“Hm?” 

Steve holds a finger to his lips, motioning in Sharon’s direction with his free hand. He doesn’t look to see if Tony follows the direction, but since he doesn’t hear anything else from him Steve feels it’s safe to assume he’s being listened to. 

The only sound in the gym is the music playing over the speakers. Those who are there for the weightlifting room hours are quiet, peering in through the door dividing the building to see what it is that has everyone so captivated. Sharon doesn’t appear to notice any of them as she swings, her lats working to give her more control over the movement, toes constantly pointed forward. When she works up enough momentum she pops her hips, a powerful drive that sends her elbows up and above the lowest point of the rings, where she struggles for a few minutes, arms quaking under the weight of stabilizing herself on nothing but tiny circular pieces of polished wood. 

Encouraging words sit on the tip of Steve’s tongue, but he’s not sure what will break Sharon’s concentration and what will motivate her past the sticking point. Her face is turning red with the effort of locking her arms out past a 90-degree angle, legs beginning to kick in an attempt to finish what she started.

In reality, it’s probably a span of 10 seconds that she’s stuck there but watching her struggle at the top of the rings feels like a lifetime of waiting. He can’t even imagine the decades that have passed for Sharon, the breathless litany of ‘ _oh shit_ ’ that must be going through her head. Then again, maybe she’s mastered the art of mental quiet in the face of incredibly taxing activity. All that matters is that with one slight flail of her feet her arms straighten, until she’s locked out over the top of the rings. A triumphant yell tears itself out of her throat, her chest heaving with the effort of pushing herself those last few inches.

“Great job, Carter! Way to stick it out,” Tony calls, still very much leaning against Steve’s desk. Sharon drops like dead weight from the rings, landing with a little less grace than usual. She shakes out her arms again, making a grabbing motion for her phone. Steve gives her an enthusiastic thumbs-up that he’s not sure she sees. 

As activity resumes in the gym, and as Tony looks like he wants to start his spiel all over again, Steve turns back to his computer. Conversation over.

“She’s powerful.”

Steve prides himself on how little he starts at the person standing behind his computer. Bucky is wearing a maroon sweatshirt, hood pulled up like he’s going incognito. Like anyone outside of the weightlifting community—and, okay, maybe Crossfit—gives a shit about some guy out of Russia who lifted a lot of weight. Steve can’t see from where he’s sitting, but he’s sure there’s a 90% chance that Bucky is wearing track pants.

He takes a steadying breath that escapes in a comforting hiss through his teeth. To his credit, Bucky doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy looking around. Even though he’s not the subject of Bucky’s scrutiny, Steve can’t help but feel like he’s been placed under a microscope. He thinks of the sad cylindrical vacuum in Nick’s old office. He hasn’t used it since the Wednesday before Worlds, and he didn’t have the motivation to pull it out before class. He feels the thin layer of chalk on every surface like it’s a second skin.

“I’m trying t’bring her over,” he says, drawing Bucky’s gaze back in his direction instead of subjecting the facility to further inspection. Bucky makes a noise of confirmation, like he doesn’t know what to say. He has a large gym bag over his shoulder, keeps fiddling with the straps. 

“You coming in for the day?” 

Bucky adjusts the bag, like an aborted half-shrug. “Just felt like lugging this around.” Bucky’s expression doesn’t change, and Steve experiences a moment that’s a little like seeing a shadow out of the corner of your eye in an empty, well-lit room. 

He boots up the computer with a screeching _whirr_. Bucky reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wallet, a tiny thing with his various cards visible through the corners, the material worn away by years of use.

“For the next three days,” he says gruffly, shoving a bunch of crumpled bills across the desk. 

“What, you didn’t think we’d give it to you for free?” He doesn’t know what the policy is, but thinks that Nick wouldn’t mind if he made an exception.

Another shrug. Bucky pulls so hard on the adjusting strap for his bag that it falls a couple inches, bounces against his thigh. The bills sit between them, slowly unfurling. 

“I don’t mind.”

“What about—“ Bucky jerks his head in the direction of Nick’s old office, a room that’s actually being taken up by a room for extra equipment, and a coffeemaker, now that he can afford the extra space. His new office is down an ominous-looking 'hallway' now, the only one in the building.

“He’s not gonna mind.” Steve’s assertion is hopeful at best, an outright lie at worst. 

Bucky looks skeptically in the direction of the ‘office’, like Nick’s going to creep out from behind a stack of bumper plates just to kick him out for failing to take a few free sessions when it’s offered to him. Steve pushes the stack of crumpled bills back across the counter with his pointer finger, until they’re in danger of falling off the edge of the table.

“If they fall on the ground they’re fair game,” he says, internally wincing as the joke falls flat. Bucky eyes the money for a bit longer and then pockets it, bill by bill, like Steve’s going to change his mind. 

“You’re sure.”

“Positive.” He isn’t positive.

“… ‘kay.” The bag bumps against Bucky’s leg again as he looks around the weightlifting area. He fiddles with the straps again, takes a step back like he’s thinking of walking back out of the gym. His eyes find the corner platform, mercifully empty and with just a little less chalk dust than the platforms surrounding it. “Where’s my stuff go?”

Steve waves his hand in a way he hopes casually conveys ‘oh, anywhere’, which is very much another lie.

“So, not over there.” He points at the cubbies where other lifters have placed their street shoes, their gym bags, their protein paraphernalia.

“It’s one of the places,” he argues. “You can keep it behind the platform if you want, doesn’t really matter.” The ‘ _for you_ ’ goes unsaid. 

Bucky tugs a little harder on his gym bag strap. Just when Steve thinks he’s going to crack from the awkward being, once again, cranked up to 11, Bucky moves toward the back platform. Steve tries his hardest not to watch the retreat, but notes with undeserved triumph that Bucky is indeed wearing track pants.

 

* * *

 

 

“So that’s it, then.” They’re stretched out on the blue mats in the warm-up area, Sam folded over deep into pigeon pose and Steve half-assing a butterfly stretch, trying his hardest not to look at the corner platform where Bucky is gearing up to move from snatches to clean and jerks. The weightlifting room has cleared for the time being, and the remaining athletes give his platform a wide berth, his own wooden island.

“That’s what, then?” Steve leans into the stretch, the tightening of his hip flexors serving as a reminder that he needs to _actually stretch, dammit_.

Sam doesn’t lift his head but Steve gets the sense that Sam’s rolling his eyes into the next dimension and every dimension after that. “You’re not as slick as you think you are.” He finally slides out of the pose so he can start on the other leg. His hip pops loudly and Steve makes a face. 

“Don’t gimme that,” Sam grumbles, adjusting until he’s in pigeon pose again, “I hear your joints when you move. Like a 90-year-old man.” 

“Can 90-year-old men do _this_?”

“Steve, if you’re flexing I swear to god—“

“Answer the question, Sam.”

An empty bar clatters against the wood and rubber, a harsh sound in Steve’s ears. One look in the direction of the platforms tells him who it was and he shoots Bucky a glare that’s equal parts playful and ‘you drop that one more time I’m gonna drop _you_ ’. Bucky either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, although when he sets the bar down again after his next warm up set he does so with more respect.

70 kilos shouldn’t fly anywhere with ease but it looks like any empty bar, the way Bucky handles it. It barely touches his body and without so much as a pause to catch his breath, he drops deep into a squat. Something stirs in the pit of Steve’s stomach, and he wills himself to chill the fuck out. To not get turned on by a goddamn _squat jerk_.

“You done?” Sam’s standing now, forehead resting against his shins with his arms clasped behind him. “I can give you another minute, y’know, some time alone—“

“ _Jesus_.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I know what you’re saying but what _I’m saying_ is—“

“I saw you at Worlds.” Sam’s tone is all business. “You weren’t with it half the time." 

Steve attempts pigeon pose as a means of escape, as if by wanting it bad enough he can will his body into flexibility. Can contort himself into a ball and roll away from this line of questioning. “The competition—“

“—wasn’t the issue,” Sam interjects. “Gimme a little credit, Steve.”

He thinks if he leans forward any more his spine is going to snap, but he tries anyway. Bucky’s doing triples with 110.

“I was just. Surprised.” He feels the stretch in the deepest parts of himself, pushes into it until he might break in two. “That’s all.”

Sam doesn’t believe him for a second—Steve knows he doesn’t, and doesn’t blame him—but the line of questioning stops there. There’s no ‘we’ll finish this later’, no threat of further interrogation, but Steve gets the feeling he’s being let off easy. There are plenty more questions where that came from.

For the moment, though, he’s grateful. 

After a quick rotation of each of his ankles, Sam leaves the mats.

“Don’t pull anything.” 

“Fuck _you_.”

“I can’t call life alert again, you know I can’t…” Steve watches as Sam sets up on the platform next to Bucky, a deliberate attempt at interaction. Bucky doesn’t seem to pay him any mind, already at 140 kg and ready to move up again. He goes through the clean and jerk for a double, pausing long in the bottom on the second jerk and shifting his hips like he’s working some of the remaining stiffness out of his legs.

When the bar lands back on the platform, Bucky returns to the chair he’s set up for himself. He takes a sip from his shaker cup, watching Sam’s warm-ups with interest. Sam extends the same courtesy Bucky offered, ignoring him until the bar is safely back on the platform. 

It’s when they start interacting that Steve has a sudden jolt of horror, like someone’s opened a photo album of baby pictures and is ready to tell every story behind the most embarrassing ones. Sam extends a hand in greeting, body held awkwardly, like he’s trying to stay as far back as possible while still seeming friendly. Bucky, to his credit, holds himself much the same way although whether that’s how he’s always held himself or not remains to be seen. They speak in tones too quiet for Steve to hear and, incidentally, knock a solid five years off Steve’s life as he watches them with growing panic.

Eventually they part ways and return to their platforms, Sam to begin his workout and Bucky to complete his working sets. Steve finally gives up his dreams of magically gaining the flexibility he’s lost with years of improper stretching and makes his way over to the platform across from Bucky’s. If he’s lucky, the room will stay relatively empty into the evening, giving him some time to train. Not that he doesn’t enjoy teaching new converts, but sometimes he just wants to train at a normal hour. Like when other people are awake.

“Break a hip yet?” Sam’s voice carries this time. Bucky makes a sound that’s frustratingly similar to a snort, but when Steve looks in his direction his face is void of any expression. He rotates his wrist a few times, tightens his wraps, and goes into another set before Steve even has time to scramble out of his line of sight.

“Do whatever,” Bucky gasps as the bar lands back on his shoulders. “’S light, anyway.” As if dodging a bullet, he drops under the bar, wrists back, eyes looking beyond whatever is in front of him. He grunts out something that might be “it’s your gym” but it’s a rough estimate, considering he’s literally holding over 300 pounds over his head. Sometime during his warm up sets he shucked off the track pants in favor of training in compression leggings—something Steve is very grateful for.

 Steve waits until the bar is safely on the platform before he steps up to his own bar. Permission or no, stepping in front of someone mid-lift always feels like talking with your mouth full, or forgetting to clear your internet search history before a big presentation.

Bucky cycles through his doubles while Sam chips away at the power snatch triples. Steve finds himself falling into the lull of training, the repetitiveness of the movements, the set-up, the walk to and from the chalk bin. He feels the bite of the knurling at his throat, hears the sound of Sam’s shoes as if from far away. All of it becomes background noise, eventually, as he digs deeper into his routine.

And so it comes to pass that Steve, who moves through his sets at a glacial pace regardless of the Zone he's in, is the last still doing his main lifts. Sam is doing some high-rep squat program designed by Nick or possibly Satan himself, and Bucky appears to have left the world of olympic weightlifting behind in favor of some more ‘traditional’ weight training. Curl bar in hand, he lays on the floor, both arms extended before slowly bringing the bar back, until it’s dangerously close to coming into contact with his head. Steve’s triceps ache in sympathy at the number of repetitions.

By the time he’s loading his bar for front squats, Sam has already begun his conditioning work. From the looks of it, it’s alternating box jumps and burpees, neither of which sounds enjoyable.

He’s resting in-between sets—of 8, because the world is a cruel place—when Sam sidles up to him.

“Need a towel? A hip replacement?” 

Steve’s momentarily offended. “I’m not _that_ out of shape, Sam, Jesus Christ.”

“Everyone could use a towel during sets of 8 don’t tell me those spots were always on the platform, Steve.” Sam’s right, Steve’s definitely broken a sweat, but he’ll admit that on his deathbed and not a moment sooner.

“Just a little hot, that’s all.”

Sam does the eyebrow thing, but he’s not looking in Steve’s direction. “Mhm.”

Steve doesn’t have to follow Sam’s line of sight, but he does and isn’t sure if he’s being rewarded or punished for his curiosity.

Gone is the maroon sweatshirt of earlier in the day, leaving a t-shirt that must have fit 85 kilo Bucky like a glove. His hair is no longer back, hanging around his face and sticking to his forehead which is—in Steve’s humble opinion—just the right amount of sweaty. An aesthetically pleasing amount of sweat. As Steve watches, Bucky does another set, biceps straining at his sleeves the closer he gets to the end of his reps. He stops at 20, letting the curl bar hang against his thighs as he watches Tony’s class in the next room. Between Bucky's shirt and his compression leggings, Steve is grateful that he chose today of all days to wear his baggiest sweatpants.

“You sure about that towel?”

Steve feels his face heating up and busies himself with his belt, an excuse not to look in Sam’s direction. “Weren’t you doing something else?” 

“Just callin’ it like I see it.”

Bucky’s busting out another set, this time super setting with some kind of front raise. Steve's eyes aren’t immediately drawn to his arms again—instead noting the way his back muscles move against the fabric of his t-shirt— but it’s a damn close thing. Another 20 reps down, and then he’s heading in the direction of the hyper bench, 25 kilo plate held tight in his hands. 

Sam gives him another look. It’s not the ‘we’ll talk about this’ look, this isn’t even the ‘oh-great-here-he-goes-again’ look, and it certainly isn’t the look he gives Steve when Steve buys him coffee in exchange for performing menial tasks like sitting at the desk while he runs to get said coffee. This is something else, equal messages of caution and acceptance, like Steve’s about to jump off a cliff—is standing at the edge, without a parachute—and he hasn’t even looked to see where the bottom is yet. 

When Steve finishes his sets, he invites Bucky over for pizza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- alternate title of this chapter was "i wrote 10 pages just so i could objectify james buchanan barnes: the novel"  
> \- a [muscle up](https://youtu.be/zctElhcxack?t=1m17s) is a really big deal in crossfit? i think since it's just really hard to get. someone once told me that you need a lot of hip power to properly execute a muscle up, but i'm skeptical.  
> \- bucky's doing [skull crushers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9baX4-wEYx8) at the beginning of his bodybuilding work, also please enjoy the unnecessarily intense beginning to that video (the 'curl bar' is the type of bar the guy in the video is using).  
> \- a [hyper bench](http://images.hayneedle.com/mgen/master:IPX012.jpg?is=300,300,0xffffff&cvt=jpg), for hyperextensions. Honestly Bucky using 25 kg plates isn't that impressive but i figured maybe he was doing some kind of hold or something idk.  
> \- i'm not saying these are the exact [compression leggings](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1382/9489/products/Au10_-_ES111937_BLK_M2.jpg?v=1475172888) that bucky is wearing but they're damn close also i love this brand and am biased but _imagine_.
> 
> with everything that's been going on, writing has been a little difficult. thank you so much for sticking with this fic, feel free to follow me on [tumblr](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/).


	28. twenty-seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natalia demands to be paid hourly for her matchmaking services.

It isn’t until Bucky’s balanced on the edge of his well-worn couch that Steve comes to the realization that grips anyone who has guests over: his apartment is a disaster. His couch, clearly inherited from his mother’s apartment, is threadbare with a few stains the origins of which he can’t recall. The lighting, usually enough for him to read and work by, suddenly seems too dim. If it weren’t already dark outside he’d open the curtains to let in some natural light.

Bucky sits with the empty paper plate resting on his knees, looking around the apartment like he _isn’t_ trying to look around the apartment. Steve sets the pizza box on the scratched surface of the coffee table and takes a seat. There’s enough room between them that it feels like each has their own personal space, but also feels like too much distance, like anything he says is being said from across a canyon. 

“You wanna watch a movie?” He waves the remote like he doesn’t only have access to Netflix and Hulu because buying cable seemed unnecessary at the time.

It takes Bucky a minute to answer, eyes still roaming in a way that’s too deliberate to be casual. “Sure.”

“Anything you wanna watch?” Steve’s met with a silence so potent it’s practically its own entity. He scrolls quickly through the recommended titles, a mixture of dramas and comedies and television shows that he started watching out of curiosity and is now too drawn in to stop.

“Bee Movie.” 

 _Human Centipede II_ —Netflix’s favorite title to suggest no matter what he watches—remains outlined in blue on the television screen as Steve turns very slowly to look at the creature inhabiting the body of the 94 kg Weightlifting World Champion. The very man who, when faced with ‘what movie do you want to watch’, responds with ‘the movie about a lady who wants to fuck a bumblebee’.

Steve is still trying to put a hard stop to his incredulous staring when he catches the bizarre way Bucky’s lips are twitching. It’s a fleeting thing, blocked moments later when Bucky looks back at his paper plate and his hair hides his face from view, but it’s enough.

Something bubbles up in his chest then, something that brings to mind notecards and study sessions stretching on into the afternoon. Steve slides the pizza box across the table, trying to gather himself in the seconds where the cardboard catches on the divots in the table’s surface. Bucky still isn’t looking in Steve’s direction but he doesn’t have to be for Steve to know that he’s still trying not to laugh at his own joke.

He scrolls through title after title, finally settling on a documentary about the process of going to the Crossfit games. As the company logo fades onto the screen, Steve motions to the pizza box.

“Eat your fucking pizza, you gotta be exhausted after all that joking around.” There’s no bite to his words, but he hesitates none-the-less.

Bucky opens the pizza box and carefully extracts a slice. It goes on his plate and another one follows shortly after. Instead of digging in, Bucky reaches for his phone and swipes his thumb across the screen. After a moment of scrolling he opens an app with a familiar blue background. His fingers make little tapping sounds against the glass as he types. _Taptaptap_ scroll, _taptaptap_ scroll.

“We coulda ordered somewhere else,” Steve says mildly, piling his own plate with five pieces. 

“Nah.” Bucky rolls the hair elastic on his wrist up around his fingers and tugs his hair back into a bun. “Just gotta keep track.” He picks the little pieces of pineapple off one by one until they’re sitting in a neat pile off to the side. Steve looks down at his own plate, at the abandoned pineapple chunks, and his chest feels hollow.

They watch the documentary in silence broken by the wet sounds of chewing and the occasional creak of the couch as Bucky settles further and further into the cushions. Steve watches him out of the corner of his eye, only about 25 percent interested in the struggles of sponsored athletes determined to work themselves into a state of rhabdomyolisis. Anything for the title of “Fittest On Earth”. 

“They have Crossfit in Russia?”

Steve’s on his seventh piece of pizza, meanwhile Bucky is fiddling with his phone again. He’s either trying to track another slice or—and this occurs to Steve in the way locking your keys in the car occurs—he’s texting Natalia, giving her updates. Suddenly he’s once again aware of his apartment, the kind-of-cheap-but-still-good pizza, the _Crossfit documentary on the television_ —

“They have Crossfit everywhere,” Bucky says. He extracts another piece and adds to the little pineapple pile. On the television, a woman half-collapses as she runs the final mile in Murph, skin shining in the hot California sun. “I just don’t see a lot of it.”

A very muscular man talks about how he’s not good at cardio. Steve feels a suspicious kinship with him.

“I did Crossfit once.”

Bucky’s lips twitch again, but he doesn’t say anything.

“As a uh, promotional thing.” Steve makes a move to run his fingers through his hair, to do _something_ with his hands, but thinks better of it. “Y’know, ‘cause Nick was starting to branch out, and the Open was coming up.” Burpees and a 500 m run topped with pull-ups on pull-ups. Steve spent a good while hunched over the toilet waiting for his stomach to crawl its way back into his abdomen, but none of this is something Bucky needs to know.

A woman in a boot flips up into a handstand walk, a straggler making the best of a bad situation. Bucky licks some of the grease off his fingers.

“I gotta ask you a question.”

“Ask away,” Steve says through a mouthful of pizza.

“Did you enter the pain cave, Steve?” He asks with all the seriousness of someone who legitimately wants to know.

His stomach does a complex maneuver the likes of which he doesn’t want to think about for a long time. Something about his name in Bucky’s mouth, something about a night a million years ago, something about a brief and uncomfortable visit in a coffee shop. Something about the way Bucky’s body relaxed into the couch, the way he smiles slow, like someone pulling back a curtain on a big secret. 

Bucky’s smiling at his own joke, soft and a little smug. 

“You fucker.” 

 _A lot_ smug.

“I invite you for pizza and this is how you repay me. I can take it back.”

“ _Pineapple_ pizza,” he responds, nose wrinkling in disgust. Steve tries to laugh off the hollowness that slithers back into place.

“What can I say, I just. Love that pineapple.”

Bucky looks pointedly at Steve’s own pile of pineapple chunks. “Saving those for later?”

“Love. That. Pineapple.” 

They slip into a comfortable silence, attention once again on the Games and the athletes who make it into the final round. As much as he hates to admit it, the story is compelling and he finds himself rooting for everyone, internally celebrating their successes, mourning their failures. Holding his breath as the seconds tick down on the clock. He feels the couch dip a little more as Bucky finally settles all the way back, looking more relaxed with each second.

The credits roll against a backdrop of athlete interviews and generic rock music. Bucky stands, dumping the pineapple chunks on top of the last slice in the box. His shoulders pop as he stretches his arms above his head. 

Steve eyes the last piece, more pineapple than pizza. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I’m a giving person, what can I say?” Bucky deadpans, twisting his torso until his back pops loudly. Steve cringes, despite his desire to do the same thing.

“A saint.” 

Bucky glances down at his phone. 

“That’s what they tell me.” A second too late.

Then: “I gotta be up early tomorrow” at the same time Steve says “that’s fine”. The ghost of their earlier discomfort returns, manifests in the way Bucky picks at the plastic tip of the string on his sweatshirt. The way Steve begins picking the pineapple chunks off the last slice of pizza, one by one.

“Natalia and I are gonna train a little.”

“We open early,” Steve says too quickly.

 

* * *

 

They show up together at a quarter to 7, dressed in matching black sweatshirts, the symbol of the IWF printed on the right breast. Natalia greets Steve with a sharp smile, like she’s not sure if she wants to befriend him or eat him.

“Who’s watching Liho?”

“He is independent,” she responds as she waltzes toward the platform closest to the door. Her bag hits the floor with a loud _whump_.

“She hid him in the hotel bathroom,” Bucky mumbles, rubbing at his eyes like he’s still trying to wake up. 

“ _James_!”

“ _Natasha_ ,” Bucky responds in mocking falsetto.

“Let me have my secrets,” she warns, barbell balanced on her knees as she stretches her hips. Bucky seems unperturbed by Natalia’s threats as he heads over to his usual platform. As he passes Natalia he says something in Russian, which she responds to with a simple hand gesture that makes him roll his eyes.

Whether Bucky and Natalia are awake or not, Steve still requires a lot of caffeine to be up and about at 7 o’clock in the morning. He lounges against the desk and watches the two warm up, styrofoam coffee cup scalding against his palms. Dunkin Donuts isn’t his usual stop—their coffee isn’t nearly as enticing as their pastries, and their pastries aren’t that enticing to begin with— but it was the only place that was open and he wasn’t about to go to the gym without some serious caffeination.

‘A little’ training turns out to be much more training than Steve would have thought. Power snatches bleed into power jerks for Bucky and snatch pulls for Natalia, which bleed into squats for both of them. Eventually Natalia drops down to sotts press—an exercise that has her face turning red enough to match her hair—and Bucky begins his usual upper body routine. Steve’s just allowing himself to be mesmerized by Bucky’s biceps once again when Natalia does her best attempt to sneak up beside him. 

“Well?”

“You’re not as stealthy as you think,” Steve says, not looking in her direction.

Natalia breathes out in a disgruntled huff. She doesn’t move away, though, choosing instead to settle in against the desk. They watch Bucky work in silence, sounds from the slowly waking world filtering in from outside. 

“Give me your coffee.”

Steve hugs his watered down bean water to his chest. “Get your own.”

“I work _too hard_ —“

“You’ve been standing here for like five minutes.”

The key to not being afraid of Natalia is, apparently, to never make eye contact with her. He keeps his gaze focused on Bucky, but feels the heat of her glare against the side of his head nonetheless.

After a few seconds tick by the intensity of the glare diminishes and Natalia makes a disgruntled noise, settling once again at his side. “Liho misses you.”

Steve takes a too-large gulp of coffee in an effort to never have to set his (full) cup down within Natalia’s reach. He wonders how Liho could possibly remember the person he used as a pincushion for a few short hours. 

“He does?”

She makes an affirmative noise. “You must be a good scratching post.”

“It’s these thighs.” Steve prods one of the thighs in question. “A-plus scratching post material.” 

He feels the weight of Natalia’s gaze again but continues looking ahead, unsure if the message behind her look is one that he feels like deciphering at such an early hour. 

“He wants to add you.” 

“Liho?” Steve wouldn’t put it past Natalia to make a social media account for that cat.

“Don’t be stupid,” Natalia grumbles, and briefly Steve feels the brush of her fingers against the side of his coffee cup. He pulls it back just in time, narrowly avoiding her attempt at robbery.

“ _Don’t be stupid_.” Let it be known that impersonating a thick Russian accent is not one of Steve’s talents. Natalia huffs again but doesn’t reach for the coffee just out of her reach. 

Bucky finishes his overhead work and moves on to stretching. It looks like yoga, the way he bends himself into impossible positions.

“ _He_.” Steve doesn’t need to look to know that Natalia’s pointing in Bucky’s direction.

“What’s stopping him?” He’s greeted with silence and turns in time to see Natalia throw up her hands in exasperation.

“If I knew why you assholes do these things, I would make millions.” She says it so pointedly that Steve is left with zero doubts as to who the other ‘asshole’ is in this situation.

He looks abashedly down at his coffee cup. “I don’t—“ 

But Natalia is already shoving herself away from the desk, sidling up to Bucky mid-stretch and jabbing him in the ribs. They exchange words—all in Russian, much to Steve’s annoyance—occasionally shooting none-too-subtle glances in Steve’s direction. Bucky’s expression gradually morphs from one of irritation to something approaching absolute misery. Steve wants nothing more than to see that smug smile again, that grin hidden by the curtain of his hair.

They pack up after that; Bucky carefully wraps his belt around his shoes, bundles his wrist and knee wraps into a neat little ball while Natalia unceremoniously shoves her gear into her gym bag. The zipper barely contains the mass and she refuses to pack it any other way.

“That is a problem for later,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Coffee is for now.” The glare she shoots Steve—or more appropriately, the coffee cup in Steve’s hand—is like looking at the sun for far too long, which is to say, very painful.

Bucky is still packing and re-packing, trying to Tetris his things in such a way that they won’t stick out the top of his gym bag. It’s unsuccessful, if the steadily growing frown is anything to go by.

“ _James,_ I need _coffee_.”

“Gimme a sec, I—“

But Natalia steamrolls over him. Steve watches with morbid fascination, trying to parse out what each one is saying and failing miserably.

“ _You have had so many seconds!_ ”

“Jesus christ Natasha, just—“

“—why we can’t go anywhere you take _too long_ —“ 

“—just in it for the doughnut holes, anyway—“

“ _—and slower than a dead horse,_ ” Natalia exclaims, just as Bucky closes his gym bag with a flourish.

“ _There_. Happy?”

“Very.” She practically tosses her bag at him, content to watch while he struggles to carry both duffels on his left shoulder. It makes him stoop comically, staggering under the weight of too much gym gear. When he steadies himself, Natalia loops an arm through his, leaning just a little too much against the gym bags. From the exasperated look on Bucky’s face, it’s probably on purpose.

“Well.”

Steve swallows too much of his (cold) coffee at once. He splutters. 

“We’ll uh… probably be back. Later.”

Natalia rolls her eyes. “ _He_ will be back later,” she says. “ _I_ have better things to do.” Bucky looks like he wants to lay down on the tracks in front of the 7.

“Yeah! Any time!” He sounds too excited, tries to modify his tone even though the words are already out there in the atmosphere. Instead, he settles for taking another casual drink. “Y’know, if you’re in the area.”

“I might be.” That smile again. Natalia makes a quiet gagging sound. 

“James.” 

“ _Natalia_.”

She says something in Russian, tugging on his arm just enough to unbalance him again. He looks completely unamused, but gives up and staggers in the direction of the door. As she drags him outside, Natalia looks back at Steve and gives him a sloppy salute and one of her sharp grins.

“ _Do svidaniya!_ ”

 

* * *

 

A private profile appears in his Instagram notifications later that evening, the icon a competition platform with a small figure in the middle. He knows who it is without looking, but his heart does a delighted little swoop and he has to read it the message, anyway.

_baj616 started following you_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Bucky tracks his food intake via the only food tracking app I have any familiarity with aka myfitnesspal. IRL, they probably have nutritionists that handle this although there have been conflicting reports out of Russian weightlifters regarding how strict they are with their nutrition (and like, does it even matter now anyway? they're on a four year ban).  
> \- the documentary they're watching is _Fittest On Earth_ which is actually a really interesting documentary on Netflix (if you're into that sort of thing)  
>  \- the woman who nearly passed out during murph is actually Annie Thorisdottir, who had to drop out of the competition in 2015.  
> \- [Julie Foucher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bXbq5RLg90) (I think?) injured her achilles tendon prior to the Games (during regionals) and then during the Games she proceeded to tear her tendon. She completed the rest of the Games in a walking boot, and substituted hand stand walks for running tasks.  
> \- [Mat Fraser](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihqr3b8qrXE) is the one who is bad at cardio (if i remember the documentary correctly)  
> \- for those who don't remember from 10 million chapters ago, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXFGWyNEOuU) is a sotts press (although i think this is the behind the neck variation, as you can also do this from the front rack if you have the mobility for it).


	29. twenty-eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you mean there are other parks in Brooklyn besides Prospect Park?

Bucky doesn’t come back later that evening but when Steve turns on his phone after a particularly demoralizing session he finds approximately a million and a half notifications, a handful from _nro63_ , with _baj616_ making up the vast majority. They begin as far back as his early weightlifting videos—potato-quality hang snatches and a number of power jerks that are definite press-outs, now that he really looks—and stop on a selfie he took with Sam in front of the Eleiko booth at the World Championships. They’re smiling big enough that it looks like their faces might be in danger of cracking down the middle, Sam coming off the mid-competition adrenaline rush and Steve just beginning to feel the effects pre-competition jitters.

If this is what being Instagram mutuals with James Buchanan Barnes means, maybe it’s for the best that it took them this long. He has to give himself a pep talk before he so much as opens Bucky’s profile again. Several pep talks.

This time he’s not greeted by the private profile notification, but there isn’t much to look at, either. Bucky either stopped posting in the weeks leading up to Worlds or he simply didn’t make any lifts worth posting; unlikely, if the last few training sessions are anything to go by.

The most recent video is over two months old. It starts off blurry until two wooden stacks come into view, topped with so many red plates that Steve has a hard time figuring out where one ends and the next begins. Bucky appears in-frame a few moments later, forcing his way underneath the bar with so much force that the bar bends cartoonishly across his shoulders, oscillates and finally rests enough for him to go into the rest of the jerk. The bar appears to hover above the stacks until Bucky comes back into view, throwing the bar back down with such force that the camera shakes and the boxes shift under the weight.

Steve’s thumb hovers over the ‘like’. He watches the video again, and then again, until he doesn’t have any more reasons to justify watching again and he has to confront the issue at hand. Again. He thinks of the notifications he got when he opened the app, at what that means and then, like a fish taking the most obvious bait, he imagines Bucky scrolling through his Instagram. Watching his videos. Liking his videos. Watching his videos _again_.

And wouldn’t you know it, Steve’s thumb has a mind of its own because the little heart lights up red.

 

* * *

 

The gym has been open all of ten minutes when Bucky strolls in, two to-go cups of coffee in hand and a disgruntled redhead in tow. This time Bucky isn’t playing pack mule for the two of them, something that could be adding to Natalia’s annoyance, but even Steve has enough self-preservation to know he shouldn’t ask.

As Natalia heads to steal the back corner platform, Bucky goes about trying to extract himself from the straps of his gym bag. It takes some maneuvering, but he finally manages to weasel his way out with minimal joint-popping and no spilled beverages. He gives his bag one final nudge so it’s out of the walkway and then does and about-face, expression all single-minded determination.

It feels like someone shoved cotton into his ears, everything muffled, his reality shrinking down to a few feet in front of him. Distantly he hears shoes cracking against the platform, the clatter of a bar being dropped from too high a distance, but Bucky’s walking literally _at him_ and his brain is malfunctioning. 

“They had a buy-one-get-one deal,” Bucky says like it’s scripted, hand outstretched. The tips of Bucky’s fingers are red where they’re touching the cup instead of the little cardboard sleeve.

Someone makes a choking sound that sounds a little like “ _honestly_ ”.

Bucky shakes the coffee cup just enough to drive Steve’s attention back to the matter at hand. He can see whipped cream through the spout at the top of the lid. 

Slowly, like he expects Bucky to upend the whole cup on his hand, Steve reaches out to take the drink. Bucky watches him, still with the same determined expression but looking less like a man on a mission and more like someone whose plan is going off without a hitch.

Bucky stares at Steve.

Steve stares at the coffee cup.

“You drink it,” Bucky adds.

Steve nods. He doesn’t drink the coffee.

“Need a demonstration?” Bucky jiggles his own cup back and forth, liquid sloshing against the paper sides. “I’m really good at it. Lots of practice.”

 _Now_ Steve stares at Bucky. He can feel his eyebrows being drawn together by invisible forces, feels the little furrow between them growing as he really takes in what Bucky’s saying. Does he need a _demonstration_ for crying out loud—

“C’mon lift the cup,” there’s approximately zero encouragement in his tone when he says it, and one hundred percent ‘ _jesus christ how have you made it this far you actual literal child_ ’. Steve slowly tilts his wrist to the left out of spite.

“Sorry, Buck,” it slips out, like it did before, and Steve has a millisecond to scan Bucky’s face for any signs of aversion before his mouth is running without his consent, “can’t seem to find my face.” 

Bucky looks like he’s five seconds and a little less self-control away from rolling his eyes. “Shame.”

Rather than letting the cup continue to burn his hand, Steve takes a real sip and is immediately overwhelmed by the taste of peppermint and chocolate. 

“You used to drink them sometimes,” Bucky says, picking at the little cardboard sleeve on his cup. “Iunno if you still—but I figured, y’know, we were there—“

Steve cuts him off before he as a chance to finish. “It’s great.”

Bucky rocks back on his heels. “I’m leaving in a couple days.” He takes a sip of his drink. “Back—back to—y’know. Russia.” Like it wasn’t already clear.

“You planning on coming back anytime soon?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. We—Natasha and I—we gotta get ready for Europeans.” 

“ _Some_ of us more than others,” Natalia calls over, not even caring about whether they know she’s eavesdropping. “Because _some_ of us _train_ instead of talking to—“ 

“ _Thank you_ , Natasha,” Bucky calls, pained.

Natalia is starting off with heavy squats, if the weight on the bar is anything to go by. Steve wonders how it doesn’t crush her, not that he doesn’t already know. “You woke me up so early, I just assumed—“

“ _Thank. You._ ”

She swings herself under the bar, digs the center into her traps, and unracks the weight. “Embrace the grind, James,” she deadpans. “The grind awaits, _James_.” With that, she braces herself and begins the easiest set of 8 with 120 kg Steve has ever had the pleasure of witnessing.

When she re-racks the weight she spins on her heel, staring pointedly at Bucky. 

“Well?”

He growls something in response, the Russian having no affect on Natalia, who merely leans against the squat rack and crosses her arms.

“We can continue. Later. If you want,” Steve offers, not sure what they’re continuing but doing what he does best: throwing himself in head-first with no real plan of action. 

Bucky looks momentarily perplexed. “I gotta get Natasha back to—“

A sharp noise from Natalia stops him. “ _I_ am going to spend time watching people doing gymnastics and doing irresponsible Crossfit things.” To Steve, she says: “James will be free at seven.”

 

* * *

 

They get pastries from a little fancy shop near Prospect Park, a couple cookies and two poppy seed muffins that Bucky stares at for far too long. Bucky insists on paying but Steve slides his card across the counter when he’s otherwise occupied, trying to make friends with the shop’s cat. The mission is unsuccessful but the look Bucky gives him when he finds out Steve’s paid for the everything is worth it.

All conversation dies off when they sit down. Steve doesn’t know what it is about the bench in this particular part of the park that makes Bucky suddenly averse to eating his pastries, but he’s sure the local pigeon population will appreciate it. If not them, then the rats certainly will. 

“I’m gonna stop buying these if you’re just gonna use ‘em to feed the birds,” he says, only half-joking. They’re not fresh pastries, but that doesn’t mean they were cheap.

Bucky’s hand stills for a moment, fingertips still digging into the muffin top, before he tugs another piece free. He says something just low enough that Steve doesn’t catch the whole message, something about ‘traditions’, but he doesn’t bother asking Bucky to repeat himself. 

The sun set hours ago, but the street lamps are on and the park feels like a liminal space. It’s not quite day, but it’s never going to be ‘night’, either. Steve sneaks a glance at his phone’s clock. It’s 7:45.

He takes a bite out of a cookie and feels the sweet aftertaste of disappointment when he realizes the ‘chocolate chips’ he saw in the display case were actually raisins. Briefly—although he’ll never own up to it—he considers donating the rest of his cookie to the Hungry Birds of Prospect Fund. 

A couple jogs along the path in front of them, little strips of their running gear catching the light of the streetlamps. Steve resigns himself to his less-than-exciting cookie and takes another bite. Raisins are healthy, anyway.

“We’re gonna start a war like this,” Bucky says, sprinkling a few more crumbs onto the cement. The wooden bench creaks underneath him as he shifts to face Steve head-on.

Steve doesn’t exactly make a “hm?” noise but it’s close enough. If he opens his mouth he’s going to get cookie bits everywhere.

This time, Bucky tilts his head back to sprinkle the crumbs into his mouth. Steve follows the lines of his throat, the way his tongue darts out to catch some stray pieces sticking to his lips. Moving the small pastry bag feels too forward. Like stepping on a branch in a quiet clearing. 

“’Cause the birds aren’t out.” He drops a few more chunks of muffin onto the walkway. “We’re giving the rats a head start.” His mouth is doing that thing again, that secret sort of twitch at the corner like he’s trying to hold back a secret joke. 

“Well maybe the rats need it more,” Steve tries to look anywhere _but_ his mouth while he says it. Suddenly, the strand of hair coming out of Bucky’s bun is fascinating. 

That little twitch again. “With those cooking skills?” He puts a larger chunk into his mouth, talks around it in a display that’s so classic _Bucky_ that Steve aches with it. “They’re practically 5-star chefs.”

It takes a moment for the joke to sink in, but when it does, Steve lets his head fall forward into his hands. 

“You _fucking nerd_.”

“You’re getting crumbs in your hair.”

Steve makes a pained sound against his palms, and inhales little cookie particles when he breathes in again. “You _loser_.”

“They can cook for themselves, Steve.”

He wants to die. Instead, he makes more pained noises and tries not to let too many cinnamon raisin bits go down the wrong pipe.

Bucky is silent beside him, the creak of old bench planks the only indication that he’s still sitting with Steve through his existential crisis. When he feels that he can’t breathe without actually choking on cookie pieces, he lifts his head. 

The first thing he sees—or does not see, as the case may be—is the pastry bag. This seems too big for him to ignore, a mystery that he solves by glancing toward the ground where it’s resting against one denim-covered leg, whose partner is, as it turns out, resting against his own. Which is to say, and Steve feels a little like he’s astral projecting into another plane of existence when he even so much as thinks it but it’s _true_ , that in the time it took for him to get over the sheer absurdity of Bucky’s _Ratatouille-_ centric ‘joke’, Bucky actually. Moved.

“You have crumbs—“ Bucky makes a tiny sweeping movement with his left hand, like he’s directing a very small orchestra. Steve feels the heat of him before he feels the actual sensation of his fingertips, light on his skin as they brush away any trace of the cookie left on his forehead.

His ‘thanks’ comes out like a whisper, so he clears his throat and tries again. Bucky’s looking at him with an unreadable expression. The spot where their legs are touching feels like it’s at least ten thousand degrees warmer than the cool air around them.

“So when are you—“

“I don’t—“

They both stop talking. Bucky makes a motion with his hands, not quite a ‘hurry up’, not quite an ‘after you’. The silence stretches out just enough to be uncomfortable. Bucky shifts until the bench planks creak again and the pastry bag rustles and their legs stop touching. The side of Steve’s thigh is suddenly freezing. 

"You go."

“I don’t—“ Bucky cuts himself off this time. His hands fly up to his hair like he’s going to run his hands through it but he stops at the last second. “I don’t know,” he takes a deep breath, and then another one. He fidgets with a hole in his jeans. “I don’t _know_ what you want me to do.” 

“What I—?” 

“If this is okay.” He’s gesturing between them like there’s something there already, something living and real. Like the time when there was some nebulous ‘what if’ wasn’t done away by a couple thousand miles and? and Steve doesn’t know what else.

And maybe Bucky can see what Steve’s thinking because there’s a little divot between his eyebrows, just enough that he looks confused, maybe. Lost. Like he’s trying to grab something but it’s floating just beyond his fingertips.

“Gonna need you to be a little more specific.”

“If I just—“ Bucky makes another motion with his hands, something that has no apparent meaning other than expressing how done he is with everything. With this, specifically. “If I just. Y’know. Kiss. You.” 

Which wasn’t _not_ what Steve expected but it doesn’t make his brain short circuit any less. In the amount of time it takes his brain to reboot, Bucky’s expression has morphed into something between laughing and crying, possibly out of frustration, possibly out of how ridiculous this is when there was once a time when they were practically in each other’s laps before they were interrupted. If it’s the latter, Steve can relate. 

He nods. 

It takes a second for him to register Bucky’s lips ghosting over his, a whisper of what a kiss might be. Steve forces his brain back on-line but can’t see much, can’t sense much outside the way his eyelashes bat up against Bucky’s eyelashes, the fact that their mouths are still centimeters apart.

“That all you got?” And he feels Bucky smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i intended to put this up on the 10th to coincide with ~Bucky's 100th Birthday~ but i'm like almost 6 days late (without starbucks, sorry).
> 
> \- europeans are typically in April-ish. if anyone's interested i can hook you up with the list of the sessions? i'm just stoked because my fav is actually competing.
> 
> uh, i'm bad at promoting my writing blog because it's a mess of nonsense rn but i'm on tumblr as [mutational-falsetto](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/). my blog name makes it sound more nsfw than it is.


	30. twenty-nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the other shoe gets thrown down the stairs and into the ninth circle of hell

“You didn’t.”

Sam looks up at him from the bottom of his ritual pre-training handstand. He swears it stretches his spine and warms up his shoulders, which Steve is willing to accept. What he’s skeptical about is the shoulder-touches; quick taps to each shoulder leaving only one arm on the floor. “ _It helps with coordination, Steve_ ” his ass. 

“I mean, I’m happy for you,” he shifts his weight, takes a few halting steps away from Steve before continuing, “but the guy’s going back to _Russia_ and—“ 

“And technology’s a great thing,” Steve counters. He can’t hear himself but he’s pretty sure he sounds like every bad stereotype of every dramatic teenager ‘in love’ on earth.

“ _And_ ,” Sam lets himself fall out of his handstand, the epitome of grace (Steve isn’t jealous). “ _And_ ,” he holds up a hand, stopping Steve before he even opens his mouth, “what happened the last time he went to Russia?” 

Steve knows the answer because it’s been a constant hiss at the back of his brain since he and Bucky parted ways at the park. “We were kids—“

“You were going to _college_.” 

Sam goes through a quick series of shoulder dislocations with a PVC pipe. Steve’s still standing in a quad stretch, has been since the beginning of their conversation.

Underneath the insidious ‘what if’ there’s something else, not words so much as a feeling. That anxious hope. 

“I’m not saying you need to break it off,” Sam says, calm as always with a hint of exasperation (or maybe he’s just being paranoid). “And I’m not gonna walk you through it, either.” He places the PVC back against the wall before moving on to stretching his hips. His warm-up has gotten longer since Worlds, something Steve’s been meaning to ask him about but hasn’t.

There’s a ‘why not’ that he already knows the answer to, and asking it isn’t going to get him anywhere. 

He lets go of his ankle; his left quad is stretched enough for several lifetimes. As he stretches his right side, he watches the tension eaking out of Sam’s shoulders, watches the subtle change in the way he holds himself. Something like guilt, like embarrassment wriggles in between the other emotions warring for his attention.

Sam bends at the waist so his forehead is practically touching his shins, arms locked behind his calves like it’s a natural position for anyone to be in. 

“I’m not gonna be your relationship counselor,” Sam says matter-of-factly, voice muffled by his legs. “’Cause that’s not my job.” He straightens up and rolls his shoulders at the top to shake out any residual tension.

Steve recognizes the heat in his gut as embarrassment, guilt, shame, maybe. This isn’t Sam’s place, this isn’t _anyone’s_ place except his own.

“But.”

He passes by Steve on his way to retrieve a bar from the rack, bypassing the Rogue and the Pendlay in favor of the Eleiko. The only other bar that even comes close to meeting Steve’s standards is an older one, maybe a decade younger than Nick Fury but probably not by much, with knurling so worn down Steve can barely tell where it begins in relation to the smoother in-betweens.

“But,” Sam says again, setting the bar down on his platform, “if you wanna grab some food, do some mutual complaining, some Hanging Out Outside,” and god, Steve can hear the capital letters in his words, “I think I can pencil you in.”

The mutual complaining sounds like compromise, like something inevitable if they see each other anywhere outside the gym and Steve hesitates a moment before he nods.

“I could go for some food.”

“No shit?” Sam’s sarcasm is absolutely lethal. He deserves it.

“Who knew?” Steve’s hip gives an unexpected but satisfying _pop_ when he lowers his leg back to the floor. He stumbles a bit, the result of having both feet firmly on the floor after having to balance on one foot for so long.

Sam begins with muscle snatches. He starts with the bar just centimeters above the floor, back tight, arms loose. When he pulls up—because where else can he go but up—the only indication that the bar is anywhere near Sam is the slight tug on his shirt, a quick flash of stomach. The bar stays over his head for a few seconds as he relaxes into the position, tensing and releasing his lats to get deeper into the stretch. 

“You’re gonna end up with the supers if you keep this up.”

After much deliberation, Steve selects the Pendlay over the Eleiko. Sometimes it’s nice to switch it up. Sometimes local meets don’t think to use higher quality bars in competition. “Nah.”

The plates clink against the metal holders as Sam plucks two of the yellow fifteens from their designated spots. The loaded bar sits empty on the platform for all of two seconds before Sam picks it up again, going through a set of several quick muscle snatches, ending in a power snatch and overhead squat.

“All that shit you eat?” is what Sam _might_ say, but his words are lost under the bar hitting the platform. He looks skeptical enough that Steve’s sure he isn’t far off.

“And look at me now,” he says, making a sweeping gesture toward himself. “The muscle-bound freak you see before you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sam throws the greens on top of the fifteens and goes through his muscle snatch-muscle snatch-muscle snatch-power snatch-overhead squat complex again. He makes it look weightless.

Steve is still trying to get his hips to get with the program and open up already. He tries a few close-stance squats and feels that _pop_ that he’s sure Sam can hear clear across the gym. After finally reaching parallel, he sits at the bottom of the squat and shifts back and forth until it feels natural.

“You ever think about being a super?” Sam throws another yellow on top of the green and the yellow he already has, rather than opting for one of the reds or blues. 

The thing about being a super heavyweight is not so much the process of gaining weight—a process that Steve is intimately familiar with—but the idea that there’s nowhere you can really go but up. It’s the saying ‘weight lifts weight’, taken to an extreme. And, honestly, there’s only so much he can eat before eating becomes just another chore. Shovel food in, wait an hour, shovel in some more. Lather, rinse, repeat, until everything tastes like everything else and you never want to see another food again in your life.

“That’s a little too much eating,” he says at last.

Sam makes a noise of assent but doesn’t look away from his set-up.

They continue through their session in silence broken by the occasional “use your legs” and “man, _really_?” when one of them can’t quite make a lift that’s well within their range. Olympic trials are a whisper on the breeze of US Weightlifting, a myth just far enough away to not be a worry _yet_. One of those ‘ _let future me worry about it_ ’ things. It feels like drifting, training without a meet in mind. 

Steve takes the session to focus on his set-up, keeping his chest up all the way through the lift and then well into the receiving position. He works on turning around the bar faster, on pulling less with his arms. All the little things that he only notices when he looks back through the videos from his last training cycle, he makes a note to fix. 

Tony comes in at a quarter to nine, a human hurricane on too much caffeine. It’s his usual look without the usual chatter, shooting Steve a pseudo-salute and a “Captain” before disappearing to his side of the gym. It’s a mercy Steve doesn’t think to count until the low thrum of some song or another is assaulting his eardrums.

So that’s how it is. He grits his teeth around the squealing guitars and continues his squats, suddenly acutely aware that maybe he’s squatting on-beat. And maybe people will notice he’s squatting on-beat.

Nobody notices he’s squatting on-beat.

Steve saves his bodybuilding for the afternoon, when he can keep one eye on the rest of his lifters while having something to do with his hands. He’s a much better multi-tasker than he is a coach, admittedly. Instead, he watches Sam bust out set after set of weighted tricep dips, like depressing a lever. 

“Gotta get that pump,” he says, flexing his biceps despite having done approximately zero curls during his accessory work.

“Curls for the girls,” Steve says sagely, nodding in what he hopes is a wise, yoda sort of way.

“Bi’s for the guys,” Sam counters. He unhooks the weight from the belt around his waist and returns it to the rack. 

Steve only _kind of_ notes that Sam’s using more weight than he does when he does the weighted dips. Just like he only _kind of_ makes a mental note to move up to a heavier plate when Sam comes in the next morning.

Sam must notice him staring because he suddenly leans back against the weight rack in a way that makes his triceps stand out far too much to be anything but intentional. “Don’t worry Rogers, you’ll get there.”

“ _You’ll_ get there,” Steve snaps back, belatedly realizing how little sense his comment makes.

He tries to save himself. “I bet I can bench more than you, anyway.” 

It earns him a derisive snort. “Who benches?” 

“Fuck _off_ don’t you have adult shit to do?”

Sam’s only response is a triumphant grin as he pushes off the weight rack and heads toward the bathroom to change. When he comes out he looks like a different person, wearing a button-up shirt and a nice pair of jeans. Casual enough to be approachable, but still professional. 

“Like I said,” Sam slings his gym bag over his shoulder, suddenly serious, “anytime you wanna grab some food, hang out a little, I’m down.”

Which isn’t to say they haven’t hung out before, but Steve’s aware that it’s been a while. Between Worlds—which wasn’t ‘hanging out’ so much as it was ‘caught in the same horrifying whirlwind—and everything else, Steve can’t remember the last time he and Sam actually did anything together.

“Y’know, once you’re done benching and shit.”

Sam only narrowly avoids the knee sleeve Steve lobs in his direction.

 

* * *

 

 

Kissing Bucky is like kissing Sharon is like kissing the people he vaguely remembers hooking up with in undergrad. It starts with the same swooping sensation, like a bunch of doves let loose in his stomach. The only real difference is that the feeling doesn’t necessarily go away when they break apart, not that Steve notices. He’s certainly had time to test this theory, anyway.

Bucky always pulls away first, a quick little tilt of his head that breaks them apart just enough to signal the end of the kiss. Always the same movements, always the same little twitch of his lips. Steve should know, because he’s been watching.

Kissing Bucky is like kissing other people except how it always takes a minute for Steve to come back down to earth. First touch, then sight, then sound.

“Your hands are fucking freezing.” 

Bucky’s laugh is less sound, more physical action. The way his shoulders shake and his mouth curves, his breath leaving his body in a soft huff. 

The pressure on Steve’s cheeks increases momentarily and with it the feeling of his face being sandwiched between two pieces of ice and then it’s gone. Bucky shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat. 

“Didn’t hear you complaining earlier.”

“You won me over with caffeine and chocolate, how could I say no?”

“It’s all part of my natural charm.”

They walk on in silence, not going in any particular direction with a few hours to kill before Bucky starts his second training session of the day and Steve has to ‘coach’ crossfit. 

After wandering just long enough for their ears and noses to start turning a little pink, they slip into a coffee shop. It’s small and cramped, but cozy with mismatched furniture, overstuffed armchairs shoved into crowded corners and a little tabby cat lounging on a small coffee table with a typed sign saying ‘do not eat’. It’s a little disconcerting, until Steve sees the hastily-added ‘here’, written in light blue.

The cat eyes them as they walk inside. It reminds him of Natalia. 

It takes the barista a few minutes to look up from her phone but when she does she pockets it, looking not at all apologetic that she’s been caught. It takes another uncomfortable handful of seconds for her to ask for their order, just long enough to catch him off-guard when she asks, just long enough for Bucky to jump in with an order for the both of them. 

Steve makes noises of despair as the barista goes about making their drinks. It’s a lot of “ _buck you didn’t have to_ ” and “ _I could’ve paid you didn’t even give me_ time”, complete with pleading hand gestures. Bucky seems immune to Steve’s pleading, having already slid some cash across the counter and dropped his change into the tip jar.

“I know how to make it up to you,” Bucky purrs.

Steve feels his face heat up and knows he’s probably turning bright red but there’s only so much control he has over his body. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” If he were any closer to Steve he’d be on top of him.

He wants to say something suave, something that isn’t ‘and what’s that?’ but his voice doesn’t seem to be getting with the program. His brain is running like a building on fire, which is to say, very poorly. 

Ignoring his fabulous fish performance, Bucky leans in until Steve can feel his breath on his face, the whisper of his lips on his cheek. 

“Pull out my chair for me at the table.”

Any functional part of Steve’s brain that wasn’t in full working order comes back on line, a computer slowly but surely booting up after an accidental restart.

“ _Excuse me_?”

Bucky’s maybe ten seconds away from giving himself a high-five. 

“You heard me.” He presses his lips to Steve’s, a quick kiss that’s interrupted by the barista sliding their cups across the counter.

Steve does, in fact, end up pulling out Bucky’s chair when they sit down.

The tabby graces them with its presence, winding its way around Steve’s legs. Bucky makes little kissing noises in its direction, rubbing the pads of his fingers together to call it over. It twitches its whiskers in interest and abandons Steve’s legs in favor of someone more enthusiastic. It knocks its head up against Bucky’s outstretched hand, purring loudly.

When the cat finds a suitable position in Bucky’s lap, Steve lets the other shoe drop.

“How am I gonna talk to you? When you leave?”

Bucky scratches the tabby behind the ears. It has a little pink collar with blue rhinestones that spell ‘Monty’. 

“E-mails a helluva thing, Steve.”

 _When you respond_ , is what he thinks. _When you check_ , is what sits on the tip of his tongue while something twists and churns in his stomach. Monty kneads Bucky’s thigh and Bucky stares intently at the way the cat’s fur moves when he runs his fingers over it. It feels like standing on a precipice and realizing you didn’t bring a parachute, rocks all the way down. 

“I don’t remember it, uh, working too well.” He picks at the cardboard sleeve around his cup. “Last time.” It smells like mints and chocolate and he doesn’t want to take a sip.

Bucky’s hand stills on Monty’s head. The cat trills in protest. It’s like watching someone pull the blinds down on a window, the way Bucky’s expression completely closes off. 

“Something came up.”

“It’s _e-mail_.”

“Yeah,” Bucky’s back to scratching Monty behind the ears. The cat trills again, satisfied. Steve completely tears the cardboard sleeve off his cup and feels the warmth of the liquid inside seeping into his fingertips too quickly. He doesn’t move his hand. “Something came up.” 

He’s evading, which isn’t _un_ expected; Steve knew he wasn’t going to be opening up during the conversation but he hadn’t expected it to go quite like this. Maybe downplaying the situation, a sardonic explanation with a casual shrug and maybe he’s treating everything too delicately. 

“’Something came up’s what you say when you reschedule a meeting or something, Buck. Not when you don’t reply to an e-mail for like four years—“

“Five years,” Bucky says, absently. 

Steve feels the pressure on his coffee cup increasing and consciously makes the decision to relax every one of his fingers individually. The drink stays inside the cup, cooling at a snail’s pace. 

“ _Five years_.” 

Bucky’s staring at him now, analyzing. It makes Steve think of the warm-up room in Houston and wonders if he was being analyzed then, too.

They’re quiet, listening to the sounds of distant traffic, the music that’s just soothing enough that he almost doesn’t listen to words until there’s nothing else to focus on. When that becomes too much, he watches the way Monty’s claws dig into Bucky’s thigh, a wavelike rhythm. 

“I don’t want to talk about this.” It’s not a plea.

“It was five years, Bucky.” It was five years and he thought something bad had happened. It was five years and then he shows up on _instagram_ of all places, a shadow, a ghost. Five years later and all Bucky had for him was a sneer in the warm-up room and a “what do you want” and now they’re here but what is _here_ , anyway? 

Steve feels a rust-colored sensation in his mouth, his insides. It tastes like second-guessing and copper. He takes a quick sip of his cold coffee concoction and tries to stem the stubborn swell of fondness at the taste of mint chocolate mocha. 

“We can Skype,” Bucky says, quiet enough that Steve wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been listening for a break in the silence. “When it works.” 

“When it works,” Steve echoes. 

“With training,” he adds, quick enough that Steve can tell himself it was a slip-up and Bucky isn’t just trying to pull another disappearing act. “You know how it is.” Steve doesn’t know how it is, wants to _ask_ how it is, this training of his, but he doesn’t push it. The copper taste settles on his tongue like a second skin and he wants to go home and lay down for seventy years.

He drinks to wash the sensation out of his mouth; he’s not sure how successful it is.

Across from him Bucky pets Monty without looking up. A car honks outside.

“Your class starts soon,” Bucky mumbles. 

They walk back in silence, fingertips brushing against one another without any sort of catch. A block away from the gym, Bucky’s hand finds Steve’s, cold meeting warm in a momentary grip, a quick squeeze, before they walk inside the Crossfit side.

Natalia waves lazily from where she’s leaning against a rig, talking to Sharon. Her words mean nothing to Steve but she says them with enough fondness, enough of a twist to her lips that he’s sure it’s a joke.

“Dobroe utro, soldat.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky shows up at his door the next morning, hunched under two duffles with another two rolling suitcases and a cat carrier in tow. There’s a paper bag clutched in his hand and it looks like whatever is inside is dangerously close to be crushed. 

Natalia peers out from behind him, clearly the one piloting the smaller packs. She fixes Steve with the same look as the cat in the coffee shop, the same look Liho gave him that night in the hotel room.

“Everyone we know is trying to kill us,” is what Natalia says.

He steps back and away from the door, but neither of them make any move to come inside. Bucky looks exasperated, like dealing with a younger sibling or an unruly child he’s been charged with babysitting.

After a few seconds of staring at one another in silence, Bucky speaks up. “We’re heading out. To the airport. Y’know. If you wanna…” 

“Kiss him. Goodbye. Many times.”

“ _Come along with_ Natalia fuck’s sake.” 

Natalia takes a bite of chocolate pastry, looking pleased with herself. “It all ends the same.” 

It takes some time before Steve realizes the ‘come along with’ doesn’t refer to going to Russia. The thought is both terrifying and exciting if only because he’s never had the pleasure of traveling for anything other than weightlifting, an experience he doesn’t particularly consider ‘traveling’.

They’re still looking at him, Natalia expectantly, Bucky carefully neutral.

“Yeah, lemme grab my coat.” 

They ride the AirTrain to JFK, Bucky sitting between Steve and Natalia. His fingers tangle with Steve’s, gripping and regripping like he’s nervous. Every now and then Steve catches him looking out of the corner of his eye, mouth poised like he’s going to say something but it never comes.

“We’ll Skype,” is what he says, finally, when they’ve reached security. “I’ll. E-mail you?” Like it’s a question that needs answering.

Steve tastes copper again, faint, nauseating. “There’s an app, y’know,” is what he says, hoarse. “For texting.”

Natalia— who until this moment has been pretending to be preoccupied with Liho’s collar through the bars of his cat carrier— whacks Bucky on the shoulder. “I _told_ you.” 

Bucky shoves her just lightly enough to make her stumble. “Can’t imagine why I wouldn’t believe you.”

“A mystery,” Natalia says gravely. She digs into the crumpled paper bag and produces a smooshed doughnut with rainbow sprinkles. “Are you eating this?”

Bucky barely has time to say “you know I’m not” before Natalia shoves a piece of it into her mouth. 

Sure that Natalia has been appeased once again, Bucky turns back to Steve.

“You’ll text?”

The corners of his mouth twitch up, not quite a smile. He looks tired. “I’ll text.”

Bucky’s lips are dry, chapped where he bites them. His hands are cold on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my hope is that since i have spring break coming up soon I can update this thing before the rest of my semester comes crashing down on my shoulders/finals happens?
> 
> \- Eleiko >  
> \- [here](https://youtu.be/i5Kp0w5f2Nc) is a muscle snatch as performed by Lasha Talakhadze, a 105+ from Georgia. If I'm not mistaken that's 90 kg that he's using. Sam is maybe using 70 or 75, at the most, because with the number of movements he's doing lighter weights are ideal.  
> \- 'Super' is short for 'super heavyweight' which refers to the 105+ for men and 90+ for women ('heavyweight', in that case, refers to the 105 and 90 kg classes). Essentially there is no upper limit to these weight classes so you can weigh as much as you want, which is ideal when you're trying to be competitive. The down side is, of course, nobody ever takes you seriously as an athlete.  
> \- the European championships are happening this week, for anyone who is fortunate enough to have access to Eurosport 1 or like, a pirated livestream. You can watch some of the B sessions on Youtube and some _very_ dedicated individual is uploading the A sessions shortly after they happen, but the commentary is all in Russian. My fav parts thus far have been:  
>  a. [Bernardin Kingue Matam's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwnKgJjNes) backflip in the 69 session (also his elbows continue to amaze me please watch that video)  
> b. [Lydia Valentin's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBHJwzb-048) winning clean & jerk in the 75 A session complete with a dance at the end (because who doesn't love Lydia Valentin nobody that's who)  
> c. [Sona Poghosyan's](https://youtu.be/e1jrLNcQCWM?t=38m17s) opening clean and jerk in the 75 A session. She ended up taking second because the other girl bombed out on her clean and jerks. But let's all admire that power for like. Ten minutes. An eternity. I have a new fav 75 and I'm not sorry.
> 
>  _also_ [alby_mangroves](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves) did a gorgeous drawing that you can find [here](http://artgroves.tumblr.com/post/158511484019/bucky-in-weightlifting-compression-leggings) on tumblr and also linked to this fic, if you have not already seen it. Or if you would like to gaze at it some more.


	31. thirty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do it for the 'gram

Steve isn’t sure what the words ‘artisanal burger’ mean, but he _does_ learn that it involves sitting for five minutes while Sam tries to find adequate lighting.

“All these windows and you’d think they’d get some natural lighting,” he mumbles, leaning this way and that and tilting his phone as if by tilting the phone the lighting will magically get better. “Steve, you gotta switch me seats.” Sam looks like he’s only half joking. Like he’s five seconds away from shoving the rustic-looking metal container full of sweet potato fries aside and climbing over the table for the perfect angle.

“Can’t I just take the picture?” Steve’s burger is getting cold, which wouldn’t be a problem except he doesn’t know how long a burger can be cold before it is no longer artisanal. How long must a burger freeze before it’s just another cold mistake?

Sam gives Steve a flat look. “Steve.” He says it like a weight dropping from twelve stories up. “You can’t just—it’s _food porn_ , Steve.” He gestures at his cooling burger for emphasis. 

“So, that’s…?”

“That’s a no. Switch me seats.”

They briefly engage in a staring contest. Sam’s eyes narrow just enough to tell Steve he means business, meanwhile Steve gives Sam the most ‘are you serious?’ look he can muster. Neither of them budges, but the increasingly real threat of cold burger weighs heavy on his mind.

His chair screeches against the wood floor as he scoots back from the table. 

“You get twenty seconds.” He’s being generous. 

Sam hurries out of his seat, careful not to disturb any of the artistically-arranged fries (can fries in a metal holder even be artistic? Steve wants to look it up later). “You won’t regret this this is some _grade-A food porn,_ Steve. Just look at that shit…” He plops down gracelessly in Steve’s seat, not even bothering to pull in the chair. 

It takes him over twenty seconds to get the picture of his burger and fries. The picture captures the way the light plays off the onion bun off to the side of the burger, the contrast of the bright green lettuce and the white of the fried egg.

“You good?” Steve doesn’t know how he feels about cold burgers. His stomach burbles a little, deciding for him. 

Sam leans across the table and, without acknowledging that Steve is letting him use his chair out of the goodness of his heart, shoves the shining onion bun down onto the fried egg. Gooey yellow yolk runs down the edges of the rest of the burger while Sam makes noises of approval, tapping away at his phone screen to get another good picture. 

“I’m losing muscle mass,” Steve complains as his stomach aches, no doubt protesting the complete _lack_ of burger and fries in his stomach. Even cold previously-artisanal burger and fries. He no longer has qualms about either of these things. 

“You can lose a little more,” Sam replies. He slouches back in Steve’s chair and opens Instagram, fiddling with the picture settings until he has the perfect picture of the burger with and without bun, side by side.

Steve takes a few steps in the direction of Sam’s burger. “I dunno, Sam, your burger looks _pre-tty_ good.”

Sam doesn’t look up from his phone, but he swivels to face Steve none-the-less. “You take one more step and I’m stabbing you with the decorative toothpick.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

Steve takes another step toward the burger. Sam’s hand hovers dangerously close to the decorative toothpick-American-flag sticking out of the top of Steve’s burger. His finger circles the stick, not quite touching the onion bun, but only just. 

“Step away from the sandwich.”

“Burger.” 

“You don’t even like eggs.”

He begins a slow descent into Sam’s unoccupied chair. “I’m gonna compromise.” 

Sam’s finger is, possibly, touching the bun now. Steve can’t quite tell. “You wanna explain the little American flag sticking outta your forehead, you’re welcome to it.”

“Violence doesn’t solve anything.” Steve’s hand hovers dangerously close to Sam’s sweet potato fries. There are large crystals of salt on them and, unlike cold burgers, he has very few reservations about eating the french fries cold.

“Rogers you _put your hand back or so help me—_ “

“We _both_ ordered sweet potato fries!”

“But those are mine,” Sam points out, helpfully.

“And _that burger_ is mine.” 

They’ve reached an impasse. People in the restaurant—which is sparsely populated thanks to it being the middle of the day and also the restaurant being an almost literal hole in the wall—are starting to get tired of pretending not to notice the dispute going on at the table near the windows. Seniors are shooting them furtive glances. Steve’s burger is probably now ice cold. The cheese probably isn’t even gooey anymore. 

Steve stares at Sam.

Sam stares at Steve. 

Sam’s phone, unaware of the tension in the restaurant, makes an ascending series of bird noises. 

“ _Shit_.” He scrambles to grab the phone off the table as the bird noises get louder and louder.

Steve remains immobile, fingertips just millimeters from Sam’s fries. His stomach burbles again. Even the cold egg yolk on Sam’s burger looks delicious.

“ _Shit_!”

The total 180 in emotion gives him mental whiplash. He doesn’t even have to open his mouth to ask what’s going on before Sam’s shoving his cell phone under Steve’s nose, too excited to explain. 

The subject line says _2016 Summer Olympic Trials, Salt Lake City, Utah_.

Sam’s practically vibrating across from him, all food forgotten. “Look at the dates, _look at the dates_.”

The dates, listed in a smaller font below what is obviously the most important part of the e-mail, ring a faint bell in Steve’s head. It’s a weekend that’s been marked off on his calendar—okay, on his phone—since the date and qualifiers were set. Nationals weekend. 

“Sam, that’s great!” The spindly, angry part of him—the part of him that still has everything to prove—wonders whether he’s going to get an e-mail like that soon. His fingers itch to check his phone just in case. 

“Why’s it gotta be in Utah, though?” Sam complains, snatching his phone back. “Who wants to go to _Utah_?” 

“Everyone wants to go to Utah what’re you talking about,” Steve says drily, finally feeling justified in reaching for his cracked monstrosity of a phone. 

Sure enough, there’s an e-mail from USA Weightlifting sitting in his inbox.

“Who else d’you think’s gonna be there?” Sam practically has stars shooting out of his eyes. “D’you think they’ll have Mattie Rogers? _You think they’ll have Kendrick Farris_?” 

“You already met Mattie Rogers,” Steve reminds him, tapping the screen of Sam’s phone as if to bring up the selfie that graced both his and her Instagram account after the selfie was taken. “I’m pretty sure Farris’ll show.” _Pretty sure I’ll be competing against him_ goes unsaid. 

“Yeah okay but—“

“ _And_ I bet you’ll get a selfie.”

“I gotta at least get one.”

“Clint’ll be there,” Steve says idly, picking at Sam’s fries, “then you can get a selfie in _HD_.”

Sam looks up from the text he’s sending long enough to scowl in his general direction. “Don’t mock me, Steven.”

He holds up both hands in mock surrender. “Who’s mocking? I just think a selfie in HD’d be a lot more special than—“

“The toothpick in the forehead threat still stands.”

“Can’t drive you to the airport if I have a toothpick in my face.”

Sam reaches across the table and grabs his burger. “Don’t worry, I got someone else lined up.”

 

* * *

 

The time difference between Yakutsk and New York is sixteen hours. Steve knows this because he googled it approximately seven times before actually opening Skype and another five times before he presses the little ‘call’ symbol next to Bucky’s screen name. It’s not ‘bucketbarnes’ but it’ll do. 

The little clock on Steve’s computer reads 6 PM, which means it’s 7 AM where Bucky is. Steve knows this because, after googling the time difference between both locations, he googled “if it’s 6 PM in NY what time is it in Yakutsk”. 

He just wants to be careful.

Bucky comes into focus pixel by pixel, shirtless and looking like he’s one mistimed blink away from faceplanting into the mug clutched in his hands. It’s been about two weeks since he got back, their correspondence primarily through e-mail while Bucky readjusted to training and the time difference, but now— 

“Why’d I agree t’be up at the asscrack of early?” The audio takes a second to catch up to his mouth. It looks like a poorly dubbed movie filmed on someone’s cell phone, but somehow Steve’s heart still does the ridiculous swooping thing when he takes in his _whatever they are_ on the other side of the world. 

“No take-backs.” 

Bucky makes a noise that’s part-groan, part-yawn and takes a loud slurp of what Steve can only assume is coffee. “Guess the view’s worth it.”

“Speak for yourself.” It feels less awkward than if he were to say it when they’re actually face to face, something about the barrier of the screen. It feels like a safety net. 

Another large yawn claws its way out of Bucky’s throat. His jaw pops so loudly Steve can hear it through the computer. “Can’t flex, too tired.”

“Shame.” His face hurts but he can’t seem to stop smiling.

They enjoy a comfortable silence in which Bucky drinks more of his coffee and starts to look more like a person. Steve takes the opportunity to take in Bucky’s appearance, the ever-present smudges under his eyes, the bird’s nest of his hair.

“I got an e-mail about the Olympic trials.” He tries to be cool about it but it feels like he misses the mark by at least a mile. 

Bucky, tired though he may be, has the good grace to look excited for him. “That’s great, when’s it happening?”

“During Nationals—in _Utah_.”

The shift in Bucky’s expression tells Steve _exactly_ what he thinks about the prospect of traveling to Utah. 

“Sounds like a fun time, _pal_ ,” Bucky says, tone flat. “I’m sure you’ll kill it.” 

“Thanks, _bro_.” He’s going out on a limb here, hoping the joke Bucky’s making is what he thinks it is.

After all, he’s literally had Bucky’s tongue in his mouth.

“Anytime, _buddy_.” There’s a tilt to Bucky’s mouth, like he’s trying not to look like he’s pleased with himself. Steve feels a sunburst in his chest.

Liho mewls somewhere in the background, getting progressively louder as he no doubt gets closer to Bucky’s location.

“What about you?”

Bucky shrugs, entirely nonchalant. “I mean, I guess. Only Karpov knows for sure.”

Another mewl, verging on a yowl. Bucky doesn’t seem perturbed by it but sets his coffee cup down on the table (desk?). He disappears out of frame momentarily, a barely-controlled slide off to one side. When he appears he’s holding Liho under his front legs so his back is facing the camera.

Liho’s tail brushes up against the laptop screen. Bucky carefully turns him around so they’re both facing the camera.

“Say hi to the little swamp creature.” 

Liho’s wearing a light purple bowtie for a collar and is making noises like a motorboat, settling into Bucky’s arms for the long haul.

Steve wiggles his fingers and makes little clicking noises with his tongue. He’s pretty sure Liho doesn’t remember him from their brief encounters in the hotel room and through the bars of the carrier on the way to the airport. Liho looks at the camera curiously, but doesn’t make any moves to investigate any further. 

The collar bow is a familiar shade of purple. Steve feels secondhand embarrassment settle in. 

“Is that—?”

“I guess?” Bucky shrugs again, carefully this time. Liho adjusts accordingly, digging his claws into Bucky’s bicep if Bucky’s wince is anything to go by. “Tasha just came back home with it one day.” 

Steve makes a pained noise but doesn’t say any more. Instead, he watches Liho receive the ear scritches he surely deserves.

This time, Bucky breaks the silence. 

“You ready for the trials?”

“If I start my next round of steroids right now, maybe,” Steve jokes. The reality of being considered for the Olympic trials at all isn’t quite settled in yet, an unfamiliar weight in his mind that he doesn’t know how to accommodate. It’s like the first few rounds with the empty bar at the beginning of a session, a foreign stretch that takes some getting used to. “Maybe then I’ll have a fighting chance.” 

Bucky’s fingers falter in their scratching rhythm. Liho makes a small noise of protest, prompting him to pick up the pace again. 

“You’ll be fine.”

 

* * *

 

 _INCOMING_ is the only warning Steve gets before the human hurricane known as Clint Barton stumbles into the gym, looking fresh off the airplane and carrying about a million pounds of jet lag.

“I lost my suitcase somewhere in Chicago.” Is the only thing he says as he breezes past the desk. He has a camera bag over one shoulder and a coffee cup clutched in his hand. His hair is sticking up in about three different directions, an improvement from his usual seven.

Kate’s hanging from a pull-up bar by her arms, twisting back and forth in an effort to stretch out her lower back. She follows Clint’s path of destruction with her eyes, expression shifting gradually from confusion to disdain. You’d think she’d be used to all that Clint encompasses, and yet.

“Your suitcase.” 

Clint looks like he’s considering dumping his bag down on the hard, unforgiving surface of the gym floor. Eventually he carefully lowers the whole thing to the ground instead, careful not to spill his coffee all the while.

“My whole suitcase.”

Kate drops to the floor. She twists her torso another couple of times for good measure. “You’re fucking hopeless.” There’s a fondness hidden under the barb of her words.

“ _I’m_ not the one who should’ve been warmed up by now.” 

She wiggles her phone back and forth, held between the tips of her fingers. “You literally texted me five minutes ago.” 

Clint parks himself in a folding chair behind the platform Kate has unofficially claimed. “Your point?”

“It’s just the bicep emoji.” 

He sips his coffee loudly.

“There’s nothing else.”

“Gotta get them gains, kiddo.” 

Kate gives him a look that’s the nonverbal equivalent of a barbell to the face. She grabs her favorite bar off the rack and carries it over to the platform to begin her warm-up. 

Steve half-watches her training progress, split between writing the new programs for his own lifters and trying to plan the next couple crossfit sessions he’s coaching. The more time he spends looking at the shared online document, the fewer ideas he has. There are only so many metcons you can write before someone starts calling you on your total lack of barbell inclusion (apparently).

On the other side, someone drops something very loudly. 

In his defense, he only has the athletes’ safety in mind. 

He’s finally sinking into The Programming Zone when Clint wanders over to his desk. Kate leans against the far wall, frustration coming off her in waves. When someone gets to that point it’s best to leave them alone, which only half explains why Clint’s sliding his phone across the surface of the table with a low “bro” by way of warning.

It takes him a couple seconds to really zero in on what he's supposed to be looking at, and another second for his heart to drop down somewhere around his ankles.

_IWF INVESTIGATES RUSSIAN ATHLETES IN WAKE OF DOPING SCANDAL_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i updated twice in one month this is unprecedented
> 
> \- [Kendrick Farris](https://youtu.be/inzdTGVMHFs?t=19s) is a 94 kg weightlifter who's been around for a while (to the point where it's actually surprising that he's still competing). He's also apparently a vegan?  
> \- so immediately after posting last chapter i found out [CJ Cummings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fN5zkWm_Ks) of the US of A broke the clean and jerk (youth) world record he previously set and he's 16 years old and i'm yelling eternally. We also have another new youth world record courtesy of [Harrison Maurus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ipYc07D50) also of the United States.


	32. thirty-one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All your favs fucked up.

Having an international texting app doesn’t do much good when your texting partner lives in a time zone over half a day ahead of the one you’re in. Steve stares at his message, an ominous _can we talk?_

Bucky’s last message was a spider emoji. Steve puts his phone screen-down on his kitchen table. His oven clock tugs at him, an insistent fishing line when all he wants to do is dig his heels into the sand.

He wants to do something but he doesn’t know what, just that vague sense that he needs to move and move until there’s nothing left. His laptop is open in front of him, Skype already up and ready to go, whenever Bucky finds the time to reply.

He jiggles his leg under the table, letting some of his anxiety ease with the steady _taptaptap_ of his heel on the tile floor. It doesn’t do a lot to placate the feeling that he left the stove on five states over, but maybe the running motion will help. He jiggles his leg a little faster, for good measure (he tells himself).

Years later, decades later, his laptop screen lights up bright. One glance at the oven clock—and he feels the large hand around his insides let up just a little bit—tells him it’s been twenty minutes, if he’s being generous.

Bucky’s hair is pulled back in its usual bun, minus some stubborn strands that refuse to conform to his hairstyle. He has that look about him; that exhausted post-training glow. Looking at him is like looking through tinted windows.

He holds up his phone, mouth moving. It takes the audio a second to catch up.

“You rang?”

He’s seized with the desire to hold up something—anything—with that headline bright and damning. It’s the same burning frustration you feel when you make an easy lift after missing it time after time, the desire to throw, to scream, to look down at your hands, your knees, your stubborn body and say ‘ _what the fuck, really?_ ’.

Bucky watches him from the other side of the world, pixels and air.

“Steve?” That audio lag. Those dark panes of glass. 

“I saw the headlines,” he starts, stops, then clarifies: “the ones from the IWF.”

It’s not the audio lag this time. Steve watches Bucky’s face, the gradual shift in expression like clouds passing over the sun, dark with the promise of rain. Watching it feels like he just walked in on Bucky while he’s changing.

Something clatters in the background, followed by the pixelated sounds of running water. Buck’s image flickers momentarily, and wouldn’t it just be fitting if the video feed died?

Bucky’s voice is barely discernible from the hiss of the sink in the background. He’s looking at his lap. “Okay.”

Okay.

Steve breathes. It’s like putting the top on a boiling teapot; all the steam is rushing up with nowhere to go.

“ _Okay?_ ” He feels wood under his hands, feels each individual particle like he’s shoving his hands right through the tabletop. But he’s not. Because he is a rational adult who can handle situations rationally and—

“You didn’t think it was, I dunno, important to maybe, _I dunno_ , tell me this?”

And Bucky draws the blinds.

“’Hey Steve, I got busted by the IWF’, ‘hey Steve, they’re probably gonna hit me with a four-year ban’, ‘ _hey Steve_ , how’d you think I got so good so fast?’” He thinks of Bucky just back from the training camps, the way he moved like he suddenly knew every part of himself a little better. A little more self-assured, while Steve was still trying to grow into his body. How he could suddenly throw himself at every lift like it was his first.

If feelings came in perfectly packaged sentences, Steve would gladly screw off the top of his head to dig around for just the right thing to say. As it is the ‘should’s and ‘should not’s and ‘not on your life’s run up against each other, anxious to get out of the same small space. He feels the hinge of his jaw, the open-close of his mouth, but the words either aren’t coming, aren’t there, or don’t exist. It’s like trying to catch something someone threw to you at the last minute.

Bucky can’t see Steve’s excellent perplexed fish impersonation because he's looking at his lap. The muscles of his arms contract and relax, like he’s fidgeting with something in his hands, but that’s the only indication that the screen isn’t frozen.

“Did you even _think_ — what did you—I mean—“ his hands flap like useless birds in front of his face. “You were gone for five years?” It’s both a question and a plea.

Bucky looks up. Every part of him looks too still, held too carefully like he’s trying to keep every one of his muscles in place with paperclips and scotch tape. “I didn’t know.”

The kettle is boiling over after five years. It’s a long, strained scream and Steve can’t be bothered to turn down the heat. He burns on.

“You didn’t _know_? How the fuck do you not _know_?”

“You tell me,” Bucky sneers, “ _you_ read the articles, _you’re_ the expert.”

“I want _you_ to tell me.”

“And I’m telling you _I didn’t know_!” 

The muscles of Steve’s shoulders feel like fraying rubber bands. “You fell off the face of the earth!“

Bucky’s expression is like the first few moments after biting into something that’s rotting from the inside out. “Yeah well,” he throws out his hands, “Russia can’t exactly debut a _cheat_ , y’know?”

“So you decided to what? Become a fucking ghost story?” There’s a disconnect somewhere, he’s sure of it. Some mistranslation, some missing detail and trying to figure it out is like cramming together pieces of a puzzle without any idea of what the final picture will be.

Bucky opens his mouth. Steve burns.

“You couldn’t even send an e-mail? All that free time on your hands and you couldn’t tell me what was going on? I thought you were dead! I thought you— I thought—“ _that you remembered the party and you didn’t want this anymore, whatever it was_. _I thought you hated me_. _I thought you moved on_. “—I thought something happened.”

Steve becomes acutely aware of the silence on the other end of the video. The water isn’t running anymore. He wonders if Natalia is listening in. He wonders if he would care if he knew she was. 

“So, what?”

Bucky tilts his head carefully, like gears shifting into place. 

“You move to Russia, you meet this girl and one day she corners you in the training hall, says _,_ ” he throws his voice in a terrible imitation of some nameless Russian girl. Not Natalia, certainly not Natalia, “she says ‘ _hello, you should try this drug, I am thinking_ ’ and you listen to her? Just like that?” 

“She was just as out of it as I was—“

“ _How_?”

“We didn’t know—“

“How do you _accidentally_ take steroids?”

Bucky’s shrug is a helpless one.

“Do better.”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Bucky’s voice almost cracks. And it’s almost enough for Steve to pull back, to put out the flames just a little bit. Almost. 

“You don’t know how you accidentally took PEDs.” He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. More words file up to perch on the tip of his tongue but he bites back. The steroids were never really the issue, anyway.

The words come like someone attached a thin thread to one end and a cinderblock to the other. “They just told us the training was working. We didn’t… know… until after Europeans. Natalia and me. It was just us.”

There’s something under the surface of his words like some sort of great, prehistoric creature. Steve shoves his hands right in.

“And after Europeans?”

Bucky's expression is made up of a million little hairline fractures. “They work us hard.” 

“So hard you couldn’t send an e-mail?”

“I wanted to.”

Steve waits for the ‘but’. It doesn’t come. 

“… and?” 

Bucky’s chewing on his lower lip, the skin turning light around where his teeth are biting in. “And… I wanted to.” 

Steve raises an eyebrow. 

“That’s all.” 

It’s like he’s standing on a cliff and he can’t see the canyon floor, even though he knows it’s there.

“You’re looking at another four-year ban,” Steve says, eyes suddenly heavy with that iron-wool feeling. “If they think you’re guilty.” 

Bucky nods. He’s worrying his bottom lip hard enough that Steve’s surprised he hasn’t drawn blood.

“But they won’t, will they?

He shakes his head.

They sit in silence, too tired to be anything at all.

“I gotta do my afternoon session.” Bucky has the good grace to look like he’s sorry. Maybe this is what he looked like when they told him about his ban the first time. Steve tries to picture it in his mind’s eye, a younger Bucky. It’s like looking through a dirty window.

“Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Sure.”

“… what time works for you?”

“I don’t know. I’ll get back to you.” He’s being childish and he doesn’t care. The hurt smolders stubbornly in his lungs.

Natalia yells something from the depths of the apartment, a warning, maybe. 

“It’s time to go."

Steve closes the laptop before Bucky can say anything else. His mouth tastes bitter in the wake of his words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone who follows my writing blog on [tumblr](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/) knows that life has been a little (a lot? extremely?) hectic and stressful this last month. it's all starting to die down now, but i just needed a little time to focus on my own training and fall back into my routine before i could focus on this fic.
> 
> thanks so much for your patience, and for sticking with me during all of this <3


	33. thirty-two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> weightlifting is 80% drama and 20% burritos and cheap beer

The sun is just peeking over the tops of the tallest buildings. He’s weighed down with what looks like seven different bags but is probably just a single suitcase and his enormous gym bag that can carry the entirety of Team USA and maybe half of their gear, if not more. Then again, Sam’s also not the one who regularly forgets at least one of his wraps or his belts when they travel. It’s a trade-off.

A week spent resting up left static in his bones. The thought of eating anything else makes his stomach lurch. What happened to being a heavy 94? Yesterday he bought two Bavarian pretzels, and one and a half of those are sitting in the bottom of his backpack. 

He thinks of nothing but the e-mails sitting in his inbox, a deluge that trickled off into a light shower sometime over the last month. It all culminated in a dry spell, broken only by the first drops of contact, a _good luck today (tomorrow?), I—_. 

“Steve.”

Digging himself out of his own head is a monumental effort the likes of which he doesn’t really feel like undertaking right this second. Still, Sam’s the one who organized the Uber and who so nicely put up with all of Steve’s useless moping without so much as an ‘I told you so’. So he owes him this much. At minimum.

“Mmm?”

“I said, I’m gonna go to the Olympics without you if you’re gonna keep this up.” Sam doesn’t _say_ ‘pull your head out of your ass’ but he might as well have.

Steve, at the very least, has the good sense to feel some semblance of shame even if it’s the self-pitying kind. Even if he’s two mixed drinks away from sitting on his floor and listening to his most dramatic, self-indulgent middle school playlists. He does his best to refocus and get the world back to its usual sharp-edged clarity.

It’s hard when the sun isn’t even halfway up in the sky yet.

“You hear from your Uber yet?” The handle of his gym bag is digging into his right trap and his shoulder is teetering on the edge of uncomfortable, enough to be painful. The logical solution of Put it On The Ground has swam in and out of his head repeatedly but it’s a stubborn pride that keeps the bag exactly where it is. 

Sam looks at Steve over the edge of his aviators just as a motorcycle roars around the corner. The wheel of the sidecar rides up onto the curb as it screeches to a stop in front of them. 

With all the pretension of someone who practiced the line a million times in the mirror the night before, Sam says “who says we’re taking an Uber?” before he gracefully ( _gracefully_!) swings his leg to settle into the remaining space on the seat of the vehicle.

He’s not sure whether he’s impressed or disgusted. His staring has to convey both parts equally.

Sam wraps his arms around the waist of the still-helmeted driver, chin settling comfortably on the other’s shoulder. “Just throw my stuff in the sidecar.”

The sidecar, from the outside, is a bright red monstrosity with a long, silver lightning bolt across it. Steve could fit into it if his knees were attached to his shoulders. Maybe.

“C’mon,” Sam is just one octave away from actually whining, “Steve we’re gonna miss the Olympics. Get in the damn car.” 

There’s a huge difference between getting into an actual car and getting into a sidecar, and Steve’s almost 99% sure that Sam knows this.

“I can fit in here?” He hesitantly steps toward the vehicle in question and peers into the front of the sidecar. Sure enough, the front is hollow and maybe he’ll only have to subject himself to the seventh circle of leg cramp hell, instead of the eleventh.

“It’s that or you walk to LaGuardia,” says a voice, muffled at first but becoming clear with every inch that the helmeted stranger removes his headgear. Steve feels a vague stirring in the back of his mind, a sort of deja-vu, but can’t really place it. He also gets the sense that this stranger would have removed his helmet in slow motion, wind blowing through his hair, ruffling it just so. If given the opportunity. 

“It’s your choice,” is what the stranger says. Steve’s already one leg in the sidecar, so he feels like he’s made his point. The other leg follows shortly thereafter.

His knees aren’t _totally_ up by his shoulders, but it’s a short distance between them.

“Steve,” Sam hasn’t lifted his chin off the other man’s shoulder, “this is Riley. Riley, this is Steve.”

“Have I coached you before?”

Riley looks amused in the way adults look amused when children say something unintentionally embarrassing. It’s a kind way of saying ‘define coaching’.

“ _Ah_.”

“Crossfit wasn’t for me.”

Funny, he didn't think his coaching was  _that_ bad.

“Riley does yoga,” Sam clarifies. 

Riley makes a noise of agreement. “It’s better for you.”

Sam flicks Riley’s ear. “We talked about this.”

“Your exact words were ‘don’t make fun of me in front of my lifting friends’.” 

“And _you_ said—“ 

“’What friends’,” Riley finishes.

“It’d be real easy to push you off this motorcycle,” Sam counters. “Just saying.” 

That amused smile slips back onto Riley’s face, but it’s hidden in a matter of seconds as he slides his helmet back on. “You’re welcome to try.” 

He doesn’t know how he feels about zipping through the narrow city streets in an exposed metal shell—“her name’s Redwing”, Sam says—but it’s something he’s trying not to think too hard about.

Their way is relatively clear until they get closer to the airport, where it becomes a mess of swerving vehicles and the lines on the road become suggestions. Riley swears their way through with Sam piping up on the occasions where Riley is too preoccupied with not dying. Steve throws his own fair share of insults but feels that his words are lessened by the fact that he’s very much curled up inside the sidecar. 

When they get to the airport it’s a toss-up between Riley leaving his precious motorcycle at the mercy of the LaGuardia parking garage security (or lack thereof), and bidding them a hasty goodbye at the departure drop-off area. They settle for the latter in order to save money and Redwing. Possibly. 

Sam slides off the motorcycle, his fingers trailing along Riley’s waist. Steve looks away as Sam leans in for a kiss, preoccupied by extracting himself from the sidecar.

“Have fun at the Olympics.”

“I’ll bring you back a t-shirt,” Sam promises, leaning in once more. Steve tugs the bags out of the sidecar in an effort to smother the beginning prickles of jealousy.

And just like that, Riley’s off. It’s with much less grace than his previous entrance, caught as he is in the usual nightmare of arriving and departing vehicles, but he manages it with grace (and a small amount of expletives). Sam watches him go, looking like he’s just undergone an hour-long massage. 

“How long have you—“

“A long time.”

 

* * *

 

The flight isn’t nearly as turbulent as their journey to the airport; free of crying children and full of complimentary cookies, which Steve accepts and eats only because of the longing noises Sam makes whenever the stewardess brings them to their seats. Although they haven’t been in the air that long, the ordeal makes him feel like he’s aged thirty years and the second they enter their hotel room he collapses on the single king-size bed, arms flung out like some dying eagle. 

“Looks pretty comfy,” says an equally tired-sounding disembodied voice. “Wanna share the wealth, maybe?” 

“Mmmmm.”

“If you think I have a problem with laying on top of you,” Disembodied Voice threatens, “I got some bad news.”

“How’s Riley feel about that?” Steve asks the blankets. If he shifts just so, he thinks he might be able to pop his shoulders like this.

“He’d wholeheartedly approve.” As if to prove his point, Steve is suddenly sandwiched between the bed and the weight of another human being, who appears to have cannonballed from the heavens just to spite him.

“You’re not as soft as he is.”

“Must be all the yoga.”

Disembodied Voice snores in his ear.

 

* * *

 

 

If the hotel room was an oasis of relaxation and calm, the competition venue is the hotel room’s evil twin. Sam’s session is already underway and he’s running his own cards and calling his own attempts as Steve prepares for his own session amid the chaos. He breathes steadily, purposefully, reviewing the lifts in his mind as he sits with his back to the wall in the warm-up room. He’s among the last to leave, the last to pick up his bar, but he can see a few others waiting for their turn.

You can pick out the ones in the trials from the ones who are competing only to compete at Nationals. There’s an added tension as months of training culminate in six attempts that can be made or broken by as much as a foot coming out of place at the wrong time. Broken by a matter of centimeters. 

Steve tries to distract himself by listening to his latest calming playlist but his nerves feel like a recently bitten cheek, drawing his attention to them any time his mind wanders. He turns the songs up louder but the nerves throb, demand complete focus.

He counts attempts until it’s time for him to touch his bar and from there it’s a steady build up to his opening attempts. It’s once in the back and then once more on the platform, an easy weight to work out some of the remaining kinks in his technique and shake off some of the buzzing in his bones. When he drops the bar in front of the judges he waves to the crowd, already feeling the tension sloughing off his body.

The next attempt is a little harder, the weight slow off the floor and his wrists snapping back overhead as he forces his chest up, his ass toward his heels, in an effort to keep the bar overhead. It looks like a sure thing until that shift, that inevitable relaxation somewhere in his body that sends his arms back and the bar falling behind him, nearly catching him on the back as it falls. He feels his knees bruise on the platform but doesn’t think to look at him as he goes off to prepare for his final attempt. 

It’s nothing groundbreaking, just enough to place him ahead of the others. This time as he sets up he feels the dull throb in his knees, the disappointment of the last lift, and puts everything he can into ripping the bar off the floor. It clips his shins on its way up before he throws himself down, elbows up and back until his arms lock overhead even as the bar travels back. There’s another terrifying second where a repeat of the previous lift seems likely, where he teeters, feeling a distant and terrible part of himself begging the rest of his body to relax. When he stands he nearly forgets to follow the bar down, but it’s three white lights, regardless.

Sam finds him in the ten-minute break, hardware already clanging around his neck. He’s got an overstuffed burrito in one hand and a rolled up t-shirt in the other.

“Where’s mine?” 

His response comes with a spray of cilantro lime rice and little bits of corn and beans. “Where would I hold another one of these, Steve. Tell me where.”

It would have been easier if Sam had just said ‘fuck off’ and left it at that. Steve contents himself with shoving as many gummy bears in his mouth as he can, hoping for an extra burst of energy. Sam continues eating his burrito with a gusto that seems too over-the-top to be real.

“Y’know you wouldn’t have to pretend to enjoy the burrito if you just gave me some of it,” Steve says. His mouth feels tingly and too-sweet in the aftermath of his gummy bears and really all he wants is to drown himself in some guacamole, ice his aching knees, and take a nap.

If Sam were wearing his aviators indoors, Steve’s sure he’d look at him over the top of them. He still manages to achieve the same effect. “I worked hard for this burrito.”

“And I haven’t?” 

The two-minute announcement. Steve has a ways to go before he even has to start warming up for the clean and jerks. Sam rips off another piece of burrito that looks like it was maybe 75% tortilla. 

“Exactly.”

This time everything passes quickly. Lifters are cycled through as though they are on a conveyor belt, being fed into some sort of machine that spits out a chalkier, sweatier version of themselves. Steve goes through the motions of his usual warm up, his usual jumps and steps so carefully planned out that he nearly misses when he’s called up to the platform early. One of the lifters must have had to follow themselves, or maybe they made an unexpected jump. Regardless, he loops his belt around his waist and walks out to meet the crowd.

If the first snatch is a stretch first thing in the morning—joints cracking, muscles acclimating to the idea of movement—then the opening clean and jerk is a statement. It’s stamping your foot and demanding your presence be entertained because you’re worth being attended to. It’s anger and brute force and all the energy you can muster when your body has already given so much. 

Steve still tastes the artificial sweetness of the gummy bears and pedialyte as he hops up the stairs onto the platform. At the chalk bin, he readies himself, takes a deep breath, and cinches the belt tight. He can feel every particle of chalk in the crevices of his hands. He can hear the descending silence over the spectators (with the exception of Samuel Thomas Wilson, who yells ‘kick its ass’ before someone shushes him) leaving only the shuffling of feet and the occasional piece of paper. His footsteps sound heavy on the wooden stage.

From there, it’s just a matter of breathing in once, bracing his core against the comforting stability of the leather belt, and bending forward to grasp the bar. Everything after is just movement.  
  


* * *

 

 **J. Barnes** <jbbarnes616@gmail.com>

_www.allthingsgym.com/united-states-2016-olympic-team-selected_

_see you in Rio_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- i should probably clarify, this is not the olympics. i couldn't think of a weightlifting equivalent to "say hi to Naruto for me" for this scenario.
> 
> where have i been? dead, probably.
> 
> i don't have any weightlifting news even though weightlifting things _have_ happened since my last update, including (but not limited) to the Chinese National Games, University Worlds, and Yeison Lopez generally being great at everything (and Mart Seim-- whom I adore-- squatting 270 kg for 12 reps because superhumans are real and they are him). And the release of Klokov's line of weightlifting equipment which bounces really well, in case you were wondering. A lot has happened.
> 
> i can't promise monthly updates but i can try, and at least have an open word document looming over my head for weeks on end. [here](http://mutational-falsetto.tumblr.com/) is where i post when i'm procrastinating.


	34. thirty-three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Team Russia

FADE IN:

EXT. МОДУН

An empty street with only a handful of streetlamps for company, muted yellow. The surrounding snow is dingy gray and has definitely seen better days. The tire tracks in the road have long iced over, shiny in the light.

Two figures approach the massive building, one tall and one short, both in heavy winter coats. Their genders, their purposes, are unclear although one of them appears to be struggling under the weight of two oblong objects.

The closer they get, the more their voices filter in, gradual at first and then louder.

SMALL FIGURE: ПОТОРОПИСь! Мы опаздываем.

SUPERIMPOSE: Yakutsk

BELOW: Meet Team Russia 

LARGE FIGURE: (huffs, steam travels upward) Поцелуй мою жопу.

NO SUBTITLES

CUT TO: 

INT. МОДУН – TIME UNKNOWN

The gym is bathed in warm yellow light, intensified by the wooden panels on the walls, the wooden floors. It’s like a room trapped in time; well-worn plates in rusted racks, platforms worn dull by hours of scuffing. The only things noticeably new are the gleaming bars along the wall and the speakers plugged into an outlet in the corner.

LARGE FIGURE and SMALL FIGURE enter, a man and a woman, both noticeably athletic in build, both wearing long leggings. The Small Figure is dressed in a warm-up jacket, emblazoned with RUSSIA in blue, white, and red. The Large Figure wears a black t-shirt with an unclear design over the L breast.

INTERVIEWER: Привет!

SUBTITLES appear following short delay

They exchange pleasantries. 

FADE TO: 

Small Figure is seated on a stool, in focus. Large Figure moves about behind her, a dark specter, plates clattering against the wood.

INTERVIEWER: (casual) What would you say is a typical day for you? 

SUPERIMPOSE: NATALIA ROMANOVA – 63 kg WEIGHTLIFTER

NATALIA: (lightly) Well, I wake up

They laugh; Interviewer delighted, Natalia, bemused.

CUT TO:

Natalia, warming up with the bar. Muscle snatch followed by an overhead squat with a pause.

NATALIA (V.O.): I always like to start my morning by waking up. We- erm- we eat. Usually.

INTERVIEWER (V.O.): Usually?

NATALIA (V.O.): Well, sometimes it’s too early.

INTERVIEWER (V.O.): What do you do then? 

Natalia switches her routine to a power snatch without feet. Large Figure watches her with a blank expression before he pulls his hair back into a bun.

NATALIA (V.O.): (laughing) drink some coffee and hope for the best.

MUSIC filters in, driving and electric and vaguely reminiscent of a popular song from 1998, if the song took a sharp left into a rave.

Natalia loads 45 kilos onto the bar with a tap and executes a series of muscle snatches.

INTERVIEWER (V.O.): How long until you eat, those days?

Large Figure drops, arms raised overhead in a perfect close-grip overhead squat. CLOSE UP on his expression—focused.

Natalia loads 10 on top.

NATALIA (V.O.) Two and a half hours, our morning session.

Large Figure loads two large blue plates on either side of his bar. He spends an extra moment rotating and stretching his wrist. Natalia MOVES INTO FOREGROUND, tightening her leather wrist wraps.

NATALIA (V.O.): James, occasionally, packs gummy bears.

INTERVIEWER (V.O.): (chuckling) He doesn’t strike me as the type.

CUT TO:

Natalia, seated in her stool.

NATALIA: (amused, feline in the way she smiles) No, he doesn’t.

FADE TO: 

Large Figure—JAMES—with a small bag of candies in hand and two red plates on either side of his bar. CLOSE UP James placing small, circular gummy candies delicately into his mouth.

INTERVIEWER (V.O.): How many times a day do you train?

Natalia executes a beautiful snatch with 80 kg and leaves the platform in a SHOWER OF CHALK.

NATALIA (V.O.): (smug) Well, I can’t tell you everything now can I?

James abandons his bag of candy in favor of the bar.

INTERVIEWER: Don’t you get tired?

NATALIA (V.O.): It gets (pause) … frustrating.

CUT TO:

James, seated next to Natalia on an identical stool. He holds himself stiffly, a stark contrast to Natalia’s easy slouch. 

JAMES: You learn.

SUPERIMPOSE: JAMES BARNES – 94 kg Weightlifter

NATALIA: Yes, I suppose you do.

They interact like a unit.

INTERVIEWER: (after a pause) James—you immigrated to Russia just a handful of years ago. How do you feel about representing a country that is not your home?

A muscle in his jaw twitches, his fingers flick in his lap. James glances to Natalia, as if for guidance. Natalia’s thigh shifts, a soft TAP to indicate one shoe nudging another.

JAMES: I look forward to representing Russia.

CUT TO:

James executes a crisp snatch triple, more like a power snatch with an added overhead squat. His bar path is impeccable. 

INTERVIEWER (V.O.): What was the hardest adjustment?

James throws on plates like they’re weightless. His movements are easy and relaxed. He pops another handful of gummy candies into his mouth.

JAMES (V.O.): (flat) The food.

NATALIA (V.O.): _James_.

JAMES (V.O.): Not _yours_.

CUT TO:

The two seated on a stool, just in time for Natalia to shove her elbow into James’ side. James doesn’t flinch. They’ve done this before. 

INTERVIEWER: (clearly confused) Sorry, I meant (pause) what was the hardest adjustment, with your _training_.

CUT TO: 

Natalia power cleans her 90 kilos. She walks it into the squat rack and lets go. In the BACKGROUND, James executes another snatch.

JAMES (V.O.): It’s another (pause) caliber. Of training.

NATALIA (V.O.): More demands.

JAMES (V.O.): I think—

NATALIA (V.O.): (interrupting) People think it’s easier than it is. They think “oh, you can just lift weights all day, there’s no work in that”—

CUT TO:

They’re on the stools. James appears relaxed at last.

INTERVIEWER: Well that brings me to another point, actually.

Natalia leans forward minutely. James’ shoulders shift, tense. Their hackles are raised, waiting for an inevitable attack.

INTERVIEWER: (seemingly unaware of the shift in atmosphere) A few years back the two of you were caught up in a bit of… speculation.

Natalia scoffs.

(beat)

INTERVIEWER: How has this impacted your training?

CUT TO:

James is performing squat jerks in sets of four. He appears to be implementing a pause at the bottom. When his set his finished, he steps back, rotating his wrists in spite of the leather wrist wraps. OUT OF FOCUS Natalia sits on her platform with her legs splayed out before her, watching her teammate.

CUT TO:

The stools. James is scrolling through his phone. His body language a clear KEEP OUT.

NATALIA: (coldly) It hasn’t.

INTERVIEWER: (desperately, trying to keep the already unraveling interview from slipping through their fingers) There are those who have said that the use of performance enhancing drugs deserves a lifetime ban.

(beat)

NATALIA: (flings out her arms, tone mocking) But here we are.

CUT TO BLACK

END CREDITS  
  


* * *

 

It takes everything Steve has not to reach over Sam’s shoulder to slam the laptop shut. It’s not even Sam’s laptop— it’s Riley’s.

Sam does the honors.

They sit in relative silence until Sam says the words sitting on the tip of Steve’s tongue.

“Jesus christ.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to write a script but I have approx 6 tabs open right now telling me how to do so!
> 
> \-- Everything has happened since I last updated  
> \-- World Weightlifting Championships took place in Anaheim, with several new world records set, several American Records set, and a handful of youth world records also broken (and set, obviously-- here's [Harrison Maurus](https://www.instagram.com/p/BcN0J5QFM7b/) with 193 kg at 77 kg bodyweight, securing the USA's first of many medals and officially ending the USA medal drought for the WWC). All nations banned from the Olympics are still banned, everyone was bitter.  
> \-- Also amazing and noteworthy was the 90+ lifter from New Zealand, who is the first openly trans weightlifter!! She took second!! Don't look up articles, though, it will make you largely disappointed because the world is a terrible horrible place.  
> \-- The American Open also literally just happened (yes, the weekend after Worlds), Idk how everyone did but I'm sure people did well?  
> \-- Want to listen to the same tune(s?) Nat and Bucky listen to while they train? [Click here!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StjWGI5-DAo)*
> 
> Here's to potentially ending the update drought, but I'm not making any promises. Thank you again for reading!!
> 
> *in all seriousness though would anyone actually be excited to listen to a playlist of like, training songs because I have a playlist of fic songs but not necessarily a training one.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Warm-up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10337144) by [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves)




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